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The Long Tide: Contemporary Ghost Net Art

For many of the artists featured in this exhibition, the problem of ghost nets has only begun in their lifetime. It is a new challenge that requires new ways of thinking about how we manage sea country. GhostNets Australia has been working to not only remove ghost nets from local ecosystems, but to effectively use the material in news ways of caring for country.

Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been misplaced or disposed of at sea. Unmanned, they continue to trap fish and other marine life as they drift with the currents. North-west monsoonal winds carry the nets from south-east Asia to the western Torres Strait Islands and Gulf of Carpentaria, where the debris is washed-up on shore. These remote coastlines are 80% owned and managed by Indigenous councils. The GhostNets Australia program is a collaboration between 22 of these communities to research, remove and responsibly dispose of ghost nets.

Fishing nets are made from various forms of plastic which never fully bio-degrade but break down into very small particles that eventually infiltrate the natural food chain. Of the 8,500 ghost nets removed to date, some of which weigh in excess of 10 tonne, all have been either burnt in situ or taken to local landfill, as in these very remote areas there are no waste management facilities.

Using the same material that strangles totemic animals and pollutes homelands to create objects that can be mobilised by sale or exhibition is an empowering statement of stewardship over sea country. Woven into knots and coils, these works—many of them vessels or objects of containment—imitate the original pattern and function of the net. It is a way of bearing witness to the tactile existence of ghost nets, reinterpreted through performing the culturally significant practice of weaving.

Basketry and weaving are commonly thought of as traditional crafts, and the assumption is that these practices have continued unchanged through generations of Indigenous artisans. This assumption is incorrect. The Wik and Kugu people of Aurukun incorporated pandanus weaving into their practices after a member of their community, Goanka Golpendun, returned from working in Cloncurry in Western Queensland, where she had learnt the technique at a local mission in the 1930s-40s.[1] In 1922, Methodist missionary Gretta Matthews introduced the technique of coiling to women on Goulburn Island in Arnhem Land after learning it from people of the Murray River region. This technique did not embody ancestral associations like twining did and allowed for greater experimentation with styles and forms.[2] The technique of coiling later spread to Blackstone, Western Australia, where twenty women wove the Tjanpi Grass Toyota—a life size model of a four-wheel drive made from coiled grass—and went on win the prestigious Telstra Indigenous Art Award in 2005. Erub weavers have incorporated the colourful straps discarded from shipping pallets into their repertoires, plaiting them into bags and baskets like they would with palm leaves. Senior Erub artist Jenny Mye is one such weaver, whose bags were featured in the 2011 exhibition Land, Sea and Sky at the Queensland Art Gallery. These examples illustrate that ‘traditional’ weaving practices are by their nature innovative and in a constant state of reinterpretation.

Ghost net artworks throughout the Torres Strait and northern Australia are made from the same basic material, yet are highly individualised. Cecilia Peter of Pormpuraaw, Queensland, coils brightly coloured ghost net and, in her Ghost net basket with Spirit Man (2009), she has stitched the spirit man Kaangkan onto the lid, arms raised, to indicate his strength and protectiveness. Mavis Ngallametta’s Magpie goose (2011)depicts the totemic bird nesting. Once an abundant species in northern Australia it is now protected, as the use of lead bullets to hunt the waterfowl has led to the wider poisoning of other species and waterways. The work draws a parallel to the damaging effects of non-traditional hunting methods, including those used by commercial fisheries. These artists illustrate the innovative spirit in which ghost net is used throughout northern Australia and the Torres Strait.

Such innovation is accompanied by a spirit of collaboration, within and between communities. Rangers gather the ghost nets from the beaches or sea and, after identifying and recording their traits, pass the material on to weavers. Whole communities often get involved in the process of collecting the nets, noting their colour and texture and how they might be used by weavers. Large collaborative pieces have developed, such as Ilum (Giant squid) (2011), a tour de force involving six established and senior artists. The squid features in a number of local stories and its depiction in this work mimics the shapes and colours of coral reefs, illustrating the importance of thinking about sea country as a co-dependent ecosystem. On Moa Island in the Torres Strait, a play was held about the life of a ghost net using puppetry made from nets. A procession of these puppets wound through the St Pauls community, accompanied by the local choir who sung in the Brokan language.

As part of the GhostNets Australia program, artists work with communities collecting and unpicking the nets, sharing their own style of weaving while learning other styles from local artisans. Artist exchanges have also occurred, with Mahnah Angela Torenbeek of Erub Island and Flora Taylor from Moa attending an artist retreat on Mornington Island to share and learn different styles of weaving. Works like Island collaboration (2010-11)—featuring an array of small sculptures by artists from Moa, Darnley and Mornington Islands—reveal the communities’ acknowledgement of the scale of damage to their sea countries caused by ghost nets.

The title of the exhibition, The Long Tide: Contemporary Ghost Net Art refers to both the scale of ghost net affected areas and the kilometres of nets removed by rangers involved in the program. For many of the artists featured in this exhibition, ghost nets pose a major impediment to the stewardship of their sea countries. This exhibition acknowledges the work of these artists to raise awareness of the issue, while celebrating the diverse and innovative weaving traditions of the Torres Strait and northern Australia.

[1] Butler, Sally. “Tradition and Change in Aurukun Aesthetics.” Before Time Today: Reinventing Tradition in Aurukun Aboriginal Art. Ed. Sally Butler. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 2010. 56-81.

[2] Bolton, Lissant. Baskets and Belonging. London: British Museum Press, 2011.

#Ghost Net #exhibition #catalogue essay

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