Collisions, directed by artist/filmmaker Lynette Wallworth, is a virtual reality journey to the homeland of indigenous elder Nyarri Morgan and the Martu tribe in the remote Western Australian Pilbara desert.
The Martu lived largely untouched by Western culture until the 1960s. Nyarri’s first contact with western culture came in the 1950s via a dramatic collision between his traditional world view and the cutting edge of Western science and technology when he witnessed firsthand and with no context, an atomic test.
Nyarri offers us a view to what he saw and, reflecting on this extraordinary event, shares his perspective on the Martu way to care for the planet.
THE COLLISIONS EXPERIENCE
Collisions is Wallworth’s third work with the Martu people of the Western Desert. It is narrated by Wallworth and Nyarri Morgan’s grandson Curtis Taylor.
Against the endless horizon of the Western Australian desert, a red dust cloud rises from the road marking the progress of a small convoy of rugged all‐terrain vehicles.
Through soaring drone photography, we are immersed immediately in the breathtaking scope of this vast and ancient landscape. But here, time, we are told, does not move in a straight line.
We are welcomed first in song by the man who has invited us, elder Nyarri Nyarri Morgan, and introduced to his family including grandson Curtis.
At twilight, Nyarri and family gather at the outdoor cinema set up on the outskirts of the community. Toyota batteries power the simple projector. The screen comes to life with what feels like a retro ethnographic film – featuring imagery from the Los Alamos desert… this other desert where Robert Oppenheimer’s atomic bomb would be developed and tested.
We may have believed we were in an immersive virtual reality film about an “exotic native tribe,” but we are actually watching an ethnographic film about our own culture’s history.
Beside us, Nyarri gesticulates as the father of the atomic bomb counts down to an atomic collision that changed the world.
Curtis tells us, “That day Nyarri saw a thing he had no words for.
In the film’s powerful animated sequence, kangaroos try desperately to flee the aftershock and are ploughed to the ground, ash covers the boiling water sources and Nyarri searches for meaning to an event that he cannot explain.
Collisions will be featured as part of the Pachamama Festival on 23rd & 24th June at the Addison Rd Picturehouse, Marrickville. Entry to this Virtual Reality experience is free.
The Pachamama Festival brings together Latin-American and Indigenous artists and storytellers to celebrate cultural connections to land through film.
More information at http://pachamamafestival.com
