Never Stop Riding

Cast of the short film Never Stop Riding: Patuway Mungkuri, Johnny Doolan, Peter Mungkuri, Vincent Namatjira, Michael Drover and Kunmanara Andy at Indulkana. Picture: Jackson Lee/Iwantja Arts

Aboriginal artists make ‘Spaghetti Western’ film to screen at Tarnanthi indigenous art festival

Patrick McDonald, Chief Arts Writer, The Advertiser. September 11, 2017 9:40pm

AN Aboriginal ‘Spaghetti Western’ film shot in the state’s far north will be among the more unusual offerings at next month’s Tarnanthi indigenous art festival.

Never Stop Riding was filmed when senior artists Peter Mungkuri, Alec Baker and Jimmy Pompey shared their early experiences as stockmen at a camp with young men from Indulkana community on the APY Lands.

The short film was influenced by their “ongoing love for cowboy and Western films, RM Williams clothing and country music’’.

In their younger years, Mungkuri — who won the inaugural $100,000 Hadley’s Art Prize in Hobart in July — Baker and Pompey worked on cattle stations, breaking horses, mustering and branding.In the camp at Welbourn Hill station they taught horse riding techniques to the younger men and shared personal stories of life working as stockmen in remote Central Australia from the 1940s to 1960s.Described as an “Indulkana Spaghetti Western”, Never Stop Riding will be shown outside the community for the first time at the Art Gallery of SA during Tarnanthi.

“All the men have really got their cowboy on … it’s like they’ve stepped straight out of a Western,’’ said artistic director Nici Cumpston.

Tarnanthi will feature work by more than 1000 artists from across the country at multiple Adelaide venues from October 13 to 22, with its major exhibition at the Art Gallery continuing until January 28.

“Wanted” poster for the short film Never Stop Riding. Image: Iwantja Arts

Full program details are available at tarnanthi.com.au

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