Shane Dodd, Pitulu Wai? (Any fuel?), 680-24MM, Mimili Maku
Varying Size, Found car part with sandblasted alteration
These works are a little bit different because I have used found car parts to tell this story in a new way. I travelled far and wide with my father and brother to collect these fuel cap doors from many car wrecks. My family are always travelling around out bush, they have been looking after country for a long time, learning from our grandfather Sammy. We are always driving around, filling up, driving around this is how we travel around bush these days. No more walking for many days.
These fuel caps have been painted, sandblasted and spray painted, it is a new process for me but I like using the sand to make these works. These stories are all connected, across many small works, each one holding a part of this huge Tjukurpa, just like the land we travel.
Mimili is sited within the beautiful Everard Rangers on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in the north-west of South Australia and 488 kilometres south-west of Alice Springs. Mimili is home to 300 Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people who have been living in the area for millennia in harmony with nature and acting as custodians of the land and the Tjukurpa (creation stories). Mimili was formerly known as Everard Park, which was a cattle station that was returned to Aboriginal ownership through the 1981 AP Lands Act. Mimili Community was incorporated as an Aboriginal Community in 1975.