Yolngu/Macassan Project at APT10 Celebrates Pre-Colonial Trade

The Yolngu/Macassan Project, curated by Diane Moon and Abdi Karya, is part of the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10) at QAGOMA in Brisbane, running from 4 December to 28 April. The exhibition highlights over 400 years of trade and cultural exchange between the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land and Macassan sailors from Sulawesi, predating European colonization. Works include Dhomala (2019–20), a Macassan sail by Margaret Rarru; Baine/Bayini (2021), a video performance by Abdi Karya; and pots painted by Nawurapu Wunungmurra. The project aims to celebrate aesthetic culture rather than anthropological representation. Moon, curator of Indigenous fibre art at QAGOMA since 2003, has long explored this history, inspired by a 1958 bark painting by Larrtjanga Ganambarr. Will Stubbs, coordinator of Buku-Larrnggay Mulka, notes that the Macassan trade was banned in 1906, causing economic collapse. The exhibition features luminescent pale blue walls and white sand mounds with ceramics. Gunybi Ganambarr's Djirrit (2021) on etched aluminium depicts a Macassan sail that saved his life. Stubbs emphasizes that this history challenges the Anglo-Australian narrative, positioning the Macassan as earlier occupants than Europeans.