Taripang/Dharripa/Trepang
Exhibition runs 7 June — 12 July 2025
Curated by Petrit Abazi and Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre
The exhibition Taripang/Dharripa/Trepang contributes to a broader truth-telling about Australia’s rich pre-colonial history and its northern trade routes to harvest the lucrative commodity of Holothuroidea (sea cumber or sea slug), a class of animals better known as dharripa, trepang or taripang, found in abundance in these shallow sea-beds.
Taripang/Dharripa/Trepang features works from First Nations artists including Margaret Rarru and Bulthirrirri Wunuŋmurra and Indonesian artist Ipeh Nur alongside contemporary works from Milingimbi and Jilamara Art Centres and historic works from Batchelor College Collection. Included are paintings on bark and cloth, ceramics, carving, and videos, each enlivening a mutual artistic reinvention.
Taripang/Dharripa/Trepang is curated by Petrit Abazi. It premiered at Northern Centre for Contemporary Art in 2024. The Darwin re-telling significantly widened the net to include Tiwi Islands and Anindilyakwa islands and Larrakia Country. The showing at The Cross Art Projects omits some works (such as the live trepang) and Abdi Karya’s work (on loan to The Islamic Museum of Australia) but includes new works. We acknowledge with sadness the eminent artists who have since passed and whose work is not included.
These important stories may be familiar as there have been several retellings in different exhibitions and venues over the past decade: artists based in Yogyakarta and art centres in Milingimbi and Yirkalla in East Arnhem Land have initiated several of these exhibitions. The Cross Art Projects has presented two linked retellings, the first being By the Wind, Stars and Ocean Currents included Bulthirrirri Wunungmurra and the second Dhomala Dhäwu: Makassan Sail Stories with the artists Ipeh Nur and Margaret Rarru. Ipeh Nur’s drawings show the rituals of the Makassan and Bugis boatbuilders (once two rival but interlocked kingdoms) as a way to unlock the complexity of historical narration. These artists are represented in this exhibition.
The lipa-lipa is again featured. It is a type of sailing boat originating from Malaysia and Indonesia that can be sailed with either end forward, typically having a large triangular sail or an outrigger. They were carried on prahu, a much larger vessel, for local harvesting. Also included is by Ipeh Nur’s short video on the rituals of prahu building. Many films have now been made starring these remarkable craft from a delightful animated video made by children “Djambanpuy Dhawu, The Tamarind Tale” (included in the exhibition), to documentaries and the epic reconciliation film “Before 1770”.
Ipeh Nur says, “Apart from looking at the sacredness, it is important to see the technology in this keel connection—they don’t use glue as an adhesive. Only eucalyptus bark is used to prevent leakage and wooden pegs to connect the boards.”
A fleet comprising some 50 or more prahu annually left the port of Makassar in South Sulawesi. After ten or so days they would make landfall on Marege—the coast from Melville Island to Arnhem Land—and venture down into Yanyuwa Country in the Gulf of Carpentaria, a distance of over 1000 kms. The fleets sailed with the seasonal north-westerly winds to our northern coastal waters and returned when the wind changed to the south. The sojourners, therefore, lived on shore for 5 to 6 months each year in semi-permanent processing camps on sheltered coves of the liminal shores. Today these seasonal settlements can be identified by the tamarind trees they planted and numerous artefacts and kilns.
Artist Mathew Teapot Djipurrtjun explains “They use that wind to bring them over here. So they come on that first wind. That wind blow this side”. They came looking for trepang (sea cucumbers). The first place they travelled in North East Arnhem Land is Martjanba (Wessel Island) and traded what they brought with them.”
They traded for landing permission and to incentivise Aboriginal labour. Each year these fleets transported up to 400 tonnes of dried trepang to China via the port of Makassar. In exchange for trepang, tortoise shell and pearls, the Makassans imported metal, fabrics, tobacco, wine and rice to these lands, with a profound and lasting impact on First Nations.
Mathew Teapot Djipurrtjun says these trade items were: “telescopes, tobacco, and pipes for ŋarali (smoking), yiki (knives), berratha (rice), dopulu (playing cards), and mänha (wine) in return for the trepang. They gave coloured flags to the Yirritja clans including yellow, red, black, green, white and blue, which are used today by Yolŋu to identify and associate Yirritja clan groups. They also taught Yolŋu how to make the lipalipa (dugout timber canoe). Both Yirritja and Dhuwa now have manikay (ceremonial song and dance) for lipalipa. They helped many clans including Gumatj, Warramiri and Ganalbiŋu Malibirr (the artist’s tribe).” (Story by Mathhew Teapot Djippurtjun, recorded with Hetty Watts and Gwen Warmbirrirr, Milimgimbi Art and Culture, July 2024.)
The trepang trade route brought together the ‘Makassans’ a broad and multi-cultural group of seafarers and Australian First Nations peoples from the north. One current took a fleet north to Arnhem Land and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Another current took a fleet to Australia’s western shores and the Kimberley region known as Kayu Jawa (the Kimberley). In these lands and waters occupied by Aboriginal nations, the two groups entered into a series of reciprocal negotiations for the right to collect and process trepang.
This long-sustained practice, fostered economic, material, linguistic and cultural exchange between the Bugis and Makassans of Southern Sulawesi and Timorese and other language speakers who embarked enroute. On the northeast shores they were greeted by Yolŋu, Tiwi and Anindilyakwa, peoples (among others).
The fleets departed after the 1906–07 season as prohibitive tariffs made contact increasingly difficult. In the wake of the Northern Territory Land Rights Act 1976, Indigenous ownership was re-asserted over languages, histories and estates. Despite this sudden severance, oral histories of these bonds between peoples persisted in stories told and retold across generations. The enduring legacy of these interactions is evident in language, with at least 350 words (some say up to 500 words) shared between traders’ Malay and Yolŋu Matha alone.
Coastal fishing continues in earnest in salt-water communities in South Sulawesi and environs despite decreasing catch sizes. In Makassar, the UNESCO world heritage listed art of wooden boatbuilding continues.
Curated by Petrit Abazi
Acknowledgements
In collaboration with Abdi Karya (SalamFest-Marege Institute), Bábbarra Women’s Centre, Batchelor College Collection, Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre, Jilamara Arts & Crafts Association, Milingimbi Art and Culture. Special thanks: Maurice O’Riordan, Will Stubbs, Dave Wickens and Zoë Slee.
Bulthirrirri Wunungmurra, Rupa, 2022, ochre on board, 61 x 51 cm #8113-22
Bulthirrirri Wunungmurra, Rupa, 2022, ochre on board, 61 x 51 cm #8129-22
Bulthirrirri Wunungmurra, Rupa, 2022, ochre on board, 61 x 51 cm #7868-22
Trepang exhibition timeline:
1947: Senior ceremonial leaders at Yirrkala produce vibrant crayon drawings compiled by anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt, now in the Berndt Museum of Anthropology. Included is Mawalan Marika’s original work entitled ‘Makassan Swords and Long Knives’. Featured in the exhibition catalogue Yirrkala Drawings (AGNSW, 2013). Dhuwarrwarr Marika drew her inspiration from her father.
1960s: Mawalan Marika was also a key informant for Campbell Macknight, whose doctoral research on the trepangers is published as The Voyage to Marege: Macassan trepangers in northern Australia, Melbourne University Press, 1976. In this classic work Macknight presents ‘Australia’s first modern industry’.
1984: Artists: David Malangi with Margaret Gundjimirri, Judy Baypunala, Elsie Ganbada and Katy Bopirri. Commissioned by Djon Mundine OAM.
1988: Historian Peter Spillett’s epic counterpoint to the 1988 Bicentennial of British annexation: a reconstructed prahu titled Hati Marege/ Heart of Arnhem Land, built in Makassar makes landfall at Galiwin’ku and Yirrkala. Now in the Maritime Museum: Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory. Spillett additionally worked with the Yolngu peoples to re-connect family lines across the archipelago.
1993: Johnny Bulunbulun and Maningrida dancers perform in Makassar.
1999: Important exhibitions initiated by Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Art Centre, Saltwater (1999) and Dalkiri: Standing On Their Names (2010), have helped non-Indigenous people to understand how the law codifies and maps obligations to the land, sea and sky.
2015: Makassar–Yirrkala Artist Exchange begun by Nawurapu Wunungmurra for Buku Larrnggay Mulka Centre.
2017: Yolŋu/Macassan Project: Buku Larrnggay Mulka Centre collaboration with Abdi Karia and Bugis people to reconnect the shared history & culture between Macassan and First Nation’s People in Northern Territory-Australia. Yirrkala-Makassar exhibition in 2017.
2019: Rhizomatic Archipelago a project by Cemeti Institute for Art and Society with the Biennale Equator in Yogyakarta, commission Ipeh Nur to participate in the Kelana Laut Residence Program at Pambusuang, a fishing village in West Sulawesi, where she witnessed the process of padewakang boat building in Tana Beru, South Sulawesi.
2020: A second prahu, Nur Al Marege (in Arabic, Nur Al means ‘light of’ and Marege, ‘land of the black people’), takes the same wind and ocean current driven route as Hati Marege/ Heart of Arnhem Land in 1988. The building of this perahu was documented by Ipeh Nur.
2020: By the Stars, Wind & Ocean Currents. Dhuwarrwarr Marika, Bulthirrirri Wunungmurra and Nawurapu Wunungmurra.
2020: Gululu dhuwala djalkiri: welcome to the Yolŋu foundations, opens the new Chau Chak Wing Museum at Sydney University. The exhibition prominently featured works acquired in the 1940s and at Milingimbi and Ramingining in the 1980s, including a lipa-lipa and woven sail/dhomola (c. 1984) is the centrepiece.
2021: Dhomala Dhäwu: Makassan Sail Stories: Ipeh Nur & Margaret Rarru Garrawurra. Exhibition catalogue, https://www.crossart.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/dhomala-dhawu-e-publication-new.pdf
2021: Composing Archipelagos was included in the Ten Days on the Island Festival program and was supported by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Curator Jasmin Stevens selected artists whose work extend thinking around the relationship between land, sea and sky. It included Indonesian artists Aliansyah Caniago and Raisa Kamila.
2022: Yolŋu/Macassan Project in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial at Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Arts (QAGOMA).
2024: The exhibition Taripang/Dharripa/Trepang widens the scope of the trade route encounter to include Tiwi Islands and Anindilyakwa islands. Curated by Petrit Abazi. It premiered at Northern Centre for Contemporary Art followed by The Cross Art Projects in 2025.
2025: The Islamic Museum of Australia, Melbourne features Abdi Karya in a tribute to the arrival of Muslim Macassan fisherman on the Northern Australia coast in the early 1700s.