That’s why, during this momentous anniversary year, the Central Land Council is partnering with Desart to present the prestigious Vincent Lingiari Art Award for the fourth time.

“I can’t think of a better way to celebrate half a century of land rights,” CLC chair Warren Williams says.

VINCENT LINGIARI ART AWARD 2021 WINNER GRACE KEMARRE ROBINYA WITH HER WINNING WORK ‘RAINING AT LARAMBA’. PHOTO: OLIVER ECLIPSE

Fifty years ago, the landmark Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976 set up the Central and Northern land councils. The Tiwi and Anindilyakwa land councils soon followed. Together the four councils have won back more than half of the Northern Territory’s land mass for the traditional landowners.

In 2016, when the CLC and Desart launched the award to mark the 40th anniversary of the land rights act, they honoured the leadership, courage and strength of Mr Lingiari and all the old people who fought for their land and water.

“We wanted to remind people that the Aboriginal land rights and art movements evolved together,” says Mr Williams. “We’ve tendered our art as evidence to back up land claims. We’ve worn our art on our bodies to show where we belong and that we’re the right people for the country.”

The CLC’s constituents still paint up to celebrate their wins, especially when these victories are decades in the making. Only last year Wakaya-Alyawarre traditional owners put on ceremonial feathers and ochre to perform at the handback of their country near Canteen Creek, 44 years after the CLC first lodged the claim. Traditional owners for Frances Well, near the South Australian border, may want to put on a ceremony of their own when they eventually celebrate the handback of their country. It will be the last land claim in the CLC region.

“The power of our art has always been central to our political power. It underlined our leaders’ messages to prime ministers,” says Mr Williams. 

Picture the artwork framing the 1988 Barunga Statement that elders danced up to Bob Hawke. Take former CLC chair Wenten Rubuntja’s Yeperenye Dreaming painting, which he presented to Paul Keating in 1993, ahead of the Mabo decision.

Mr Williams says while acrylic paints have largely replaced ochre, “what hasn’t changed is how we rely on our artistic skills when words are not enough, when we need our message to truly cut through. When we need to be seen as well as heard”. 

He was not surprised when the native title holders for Singleton Station, south of Tennant Creek, chose a painting by one of their own to draw attention to their deep fears about the country’s largest water licence. 

Lindy Brodie paints at Barkly Regional Arts, a Desart member centre. It’s where she produced First trip to Grandfather’s country with ranger mob. The joyful work recalls a visit by traditional owners and the CLC’s Muru-warinyi Ankkul ranger group to a water place on the station where Ms Brodie’s grandfather once worked. 

Little did they know, that as they made tea and dinner on country, lush and healthy after big rains, the NT Government was granting horticulture company Fortune Agribusiness a licence to take 40,000 megalitres of water every year, for 30 years. 

It’s enough water to supply Mparntwe (Alice Springs) for 119 years and meet the drinking water needs of all Australians for 40 years. Precious groundwater the company gets for free to grow fruit and vegetables mostly for export. 

The traditional owners of Singleton Station and the surrounding country fear the licence will do irreparable harm to their community water supplies, native plants and animals and dozens of groundwater-dependent sacred sites. 

In 2021, Ms Brodie entered her painting in the third Vincent Lingiari Art Award, responding to the theme Ngawa Ngapa Kapi Kwatja Water. While her entry didn’t take out the coveted $10,000 prize it likely enjoyed the greatest exposure of all award finalists’ works. 

“We have worn Ms Brodie’s painting on t-shirts and carried it on a large banner as we marched against the controversial licence, protested outside the courts and addressed the media,” says Mr Williams. “The painting has accompanied us on every step of the six-year legal challenge that led all the way to the High Court of Australia.” 

Senior knowledge holder Frankie Holmes OAM travelled with the native titleholders to the court hearing in February 2026. 

Flanked by the painting banner outside the court, he told the media that the licence allows the company to draw up so much groundwater that the water table will sink across a huge area. This, he said, threatens what matters most. 

“If the water is gone, the plants are gone, the animals are gone, the sacred sites are gone. Water is our life blood. Water is life,” he said. 

Ms Brodie’s painting reflects both the joy and sanctity of country. The finalists of the fourth Vincent Lingiari Art Award respond to the theme of Our Country, Our Culture. They speak to “this link between our sacred places, our stories and our very existence as Aboriginal people”, says Mr Williams. 

He hopes when the award exhibition opens on 17 August, at Mparntwe’s Araluen Arts Centre, their works will capture the hearts and minds of all. TQ 

MICHAEL JONES, JORNA MURPHY, VALERIE CURTIS, DAWN SWAN, FRANKIE HOLMES AND ROGER TOMMY OPPOSE AUSTRALIA’S BIGGEST WATER LICENCE. PHOTO: ANNA MIERS, CENTRAL LAND COUNCIL