Tunbridge Gallery 6 day Central Australian Experience

Day one

Sunday 27 April – day one
(Dinner)                                 

Today is a day of leisure to enjoy the hospitality of the unique outback town of Alice Springs.  Relax at the hotel, or take some time to explore some of Alice’s local attractions.  A visit to some of Alice’s many galleries is highly recommended.  Those with more time and wanting to explore further may choose to travel out of town to enjoy some of the local scenic attractions.  Talk to us for more information on the many wonderful sight seeing opportunities available.

Subject to arrival times of flights, an option can be to travel as a group to some of the renowned art galleries in Alice Springs including Papunya Tula, Tjanpi Weavers, Araluen Galleries and Irrkerlantye Arts – to be confirmed.

Meet your escort and the rest of the group in the foyer of the hotel at 1800 for pre dinner drinks, followed by dinner at the renowned Hanuman Restaurant.

Overnight Double Tree by Hilton Hotel
82 Barrett Drive,
Alice Springs
P:         08 89 52 8000
www.hilton.com

 

For the next five days we will explore a number of remote art centres throughout the centre in our privately chartered 9 seat aircraft.
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Our accommodation each night will be at Sails in the Desert Hotel at Ayers Rock Resort. 

Ayers Rock Resort lies at the gateway to Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park, in Australia's Northern Territory. Given its remote location, a resort of world class standards is possibly something you might not have expected to find here in the Outback. Ayers Rock Resort is all that and more.

Named after the soaring white sails that crown its roof, Sails in the Desert Hotel is Voyages Ayers Rock Resort's premium hotel. The interior decor focuses on Aboriginal heritage and culture, with a gallery in the lobby and significant artworks featured throughout the public areas and in the private rooms.  www.ayersrockresort.com.au/sails

 

Proposed itinerary

Day one, Sunday 27 April 
Meet in Alice Springs and visit a number of the galleries in town.
Dinner at Hanuman Restaurant
Overnight Double Tree by Hilton Hotel

 

Day two, Monday 28 April
Breakfast included, please charge back to your room
Check out and settle any incidentals
Morning around Alice Springs
Afternoon charter fight to Uluru.
Visit Maruku Arts
Dinner in the hotel
Overnight Sails in the Desert Hotel, Ayers Rock Resort – four nights
Yulara Drive,
Yulara
Tel: 08 8957 7417

 

Day three, Tuesday 29 April
Breakfast included, please charge back to your room
Meet at reception and transfer to the airport in hire cars
Ayers Rock to Tjungu Palya
Tjungu Palya to Kalka and Ninuku Arts
Overnight Sails in the Desert

 

Day four, Wednesday 30 April
Breakfast included, please charge back to your room
Ayers rock to Ernabella Arts
Ernabella to Mimili to visit Iwantja Arts 
Mimili to Ayers Rock 
Overnight sails in the desert

 

Day five, Thursday July 25
Breakfast included, please charge back to your room
Tjulurla
Warakurna
Overnight Ayers Rock

Day six, Friday July 26 
Enjoy a final breakfast together and either fly out to home ports or make additional arrangements to take in some of the sights of Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park and beyond. Breakfast included, please charge back to your room

 

Over five days we’ll fly across Central Australia to visit wonderful remote art centres and communities.  You’ll have the chance to meet some of the artists and to learn more about the culture and the land that influences the work you admire. 
Included in our excursions will be:

 

Tjanpi Desert Weavers, Alice Springs
Tjanpi Desert Weavers is a not- for-profit social enterprise of Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women’s Council, an Aboriginal governed and directed Corporation.  Tjanpi enables women on the lands to earn a regular income from selling their fibre art.. Tjanpi (meaning grass) supports the production and marketing of baskets, sculptures and seed jewellery made by over 400 women from 28 remote communities across three states, NT, WA, SA.  Tjanpi brings Aboriginal women together on country to collect grass, sculpt and weave, sing and dance and keep culture strong whilst creating beautiful, intricate, whimsical fibre art.  Supporting this opportunity is at the core of Tjanpi’s many achievements.

 

Ernabella Arts

Ernabella Arts Inc. is Australia’s oldest Indigenous art centre. It has been operating continuously since 1948. For the first 28 years artists worked almost exclusively with wool, spinning and weaving it, and making hand-pulled floor rugs incorporating their own unique walka (designs).
Limited edition prints on paper, working with master printer Basil Hall, are another increasingly important art form.

Artists also enjoy working with a variety of bush materials, including Tjanpi (spinifex grass) to make baskets and large sculptural pieces; tatu, wayanu and ininti: gum nuts and various seeds which are made into bush jewellery and “art on a string”; and punu: carved wooden traditional tools, and birds, animals and reptiles which are decorated with a distinctive poker work design.
www.ernabellaarts.com.au

 

Spinifex Artists (Tjuntjuntjara)

The Spinifex artists continue to paint traditional stories and document kinship responsibilities with acrylic paint on linen, often using a vibrant, unrestricted palette. Spinifex works have become widely known in the fine art world and the now growing body of work is internationally acclaimed and housed within major art and museum collections both in Australia and overseas.

Bush trips to local sites, birthplaces and Ilkurlka Outstation are still the main forums for producing paintings. Collaborative works are signature pieces for the Spinifex people and are keenly sought by collectors and institutions. Up to eight senior men and women may work on separate collaborative works, painting Jukurrpa or sacred stories such as The Seven Sisters, Wati Kutjara, Karlaya story and many other stories from the wider Spinifex area. Individual works are also produced during such trips and all paintings are documented and photographed for the communities archive.
Men's Native Title Painting 1998

 

Ninuku Arts (Kalka)
Ninuku Arts is a wholly-Indigenous owned and governed Art Centre which supports artists from two communities - Pipalyatjara and Kalka. Both communities are located in the far north-western corner of South Australia, near the tri-state border of South Australia, Western Australia and Northern Territory. The two communities, fourteen kilometres apart, are surrounded by the rolling, rocky hills of the Tomkinson Ranges and are part of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands.
Ninuku Arts is an Indigenous owned arts centre. It is governed by a committee of practicing artists with the advice and support of a full-time manager and studio manager. All art work produced is catalogued, documented and authenticated and income from sales flows back to individual artists, with a proportion set aside to maintain Ninuku Arts as a community-owned enterprise. Ninuku Arts supports local culture, the development of employment opportunities, and the ethical production and sales of paintings.
www.ninukuarts.com.au

 

Tjungu Palya
Tjungu Palya is an Aboriginal owned and governed Art Centre established in 2006 to promote, protect and enhance Aboriginal arts, language and culture of the region. The Art Centre is based in Nypari community, which is located at the base of the Mann Ranges in the Pitjantjatjara lands of far north-west South Australia (approximately 100 kilometres from the Western Australian border). Artists working with Tjungu Palya Art Centre live at Kanpi, Nyapari, Angatja and Watarru.
Tjungu Palya is a dynamic and innovative community Art Centre that plays a vital economic role in the sustainability of these small communities. Tjungu Palya also supports community development projects such as an aged care and lunch program, governance training and cultural maintenance. The motivation for building up the business of the art centre is to increase the capacity for Anangu to take positive control of their lives. Tjungu Palya means ‘Good Together’ and refers to this collaboration between the homelands.

 

Maruku Arts at Mutijulu
Maruku is a craft company, owned and controlled by Anangu (Aboriginal people from the south east and west of Central Australia). Maruku's warehouse is based within the Mutitjulu Community and its retail outlet at Uluru - Kata Tjuta Cultural Centre at the base of Uluru.

Maruku is the trading arm of the Anangu Uwankaraku Punu Aboriginal Corporation set up in 1984, which literally means wood belonging to Anangu. Maruku assists craftspeople throughout the Anangu (collective name of Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjara speaking people) lands by coordinating the marketing and promotion of their work and providing them with essential support services and advice.

Iwantja Arts, Mimili
Iwantja Community is mainly Yankunytjatjara people living on the eastern side of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands, 8 km from the Stuart Highway in the far north of South Australia, on a dusty rocky ridge called Indulkana.
Indulkana Arts Association started in the seventies. Initially used for secondary student's art lessons, the building used was so crowded at times that the teacher had to mark spots on the floor in the morning to make sure they all had room! Skills were learnt and the beginnings of a clear identity formed. People did traditional wood carving (punu), batik, patchwork, dying, painting and around the early eighties lino block printing started.

Over 100 prints and many drawings from that time are in the South Australian Museum. They are mainly monochrome using dreaming symbols. Later, artists had some connection with Studio One in Canberra and three women went there to work with their printers. Some multicoloured prints were developed then. Iwantja Arts and Crafts moved into the Family Centre in January 1995. Since then Iwantja has gone from strength to strength on the basis of its strong cultural identity and impressive output. 

Price is inclusive of all permits, accommodation, travel and meals and beverages (not Alcoholic beverages) ex Alice Springs, ending in Ayers Rock; with two escorts throughout.

6 Day Experience – based on a minimum of six participants, plus two escorts