Editions Arts d'Australie • Stéphane Jacob, 2016
In association with Suzanne O'Connell, Brisbane
Texts by Jane Raffan
Bilingual catalogue: English - French
Format / Dimensions 26 x 21 cm
Paperback, 48 pages, 35 illustrations
ISBN : 978-2-9544576-9-7

This is the first time that Bagu ceramics have been exhibited in Europe and outside Australian borders. They were created by artists from the Girringun art center, a small town located 200 km south of Cairns, in Queensland. It was only in 2009 that the artists revealed their works to the Australian public, during the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair, where they achieved great success with both critics and collectors. at the origin of fire boards. They were traditionally composed of two parts, the Bagu (body) and the Jiman (stick). These objects had a sacred value due to the torrential rains which fall regularly in this tropical region. They were transported as they moved by this nomadic people. Women were not allowed to handle them, only a man designated by the group had exclusive charge of the fire and had to ensure that it never went out, because the surrounding wood was damp most of the time. In addition to cooking food, it would be used to keep warm, make weapons and carry out ceremonies. It also helped strengthen social ties as well as water sources in arid areas. The Queensland Aborigines gave these planks an anthropomorphic shape in homage to the fire spirit – Chikka-bunnah – who, according to legend, threw burning sticks (jiman) across the sky. If in the past we used exclusively wood to make them, the artists of this art center who are constantly experimenting with new techniques have recently chosen to use ice to express themselves. This is why women now have the right to make them in turn. Despite the distances that separate the numerous Aboriginal peoples and their cultural differences, they are united by the same ability to create eminently contemporary works from a religious substrate whose origins go back several millennia.