Media Release – Revisions

Revisions: made by the Warlpiri of Central Australia and Patrick Waterhouse

Burrinja Cultural Centre | 25 October 2025 – 1 March 2026

This groundbreaking body of work challenges colonial narratives, amends historical omissions, and amplifies the voices of the Warlpiri people, whose stories and traditions have been passed down for generations.

In an Australian premiere, Burrinja is proud to present this major exhibition, curated by Warlukurlangu Artists and Patrick Waterhouse.

“It’s an extraordinary opportunity to showcase this unique collaboration between a UK artist and the Warlpiri community, right here in Australia at Burrinja.” 

CEO/Creative Director Melanie Burge

Exhibition Details

Dates: 25 October 2025 – 1 March 2026

Official Opening: Saturday, 25 October 2025, 2 PM
Featuring a Welcome to Country by Wurundjeri curator Stacie Piper and an opening presentation.

Community Program Day: Sunday 23 November 2025, from 10:30 AM to 3:30 pm
Featuring a Welcome to Country by Wurundjeri curator Stacie Piper and Smoking Ceremony by Wurundjeri Traditional Owners, gallery tour, and artist talks by Patrick Waterhouse and Warlpiri artists.

About the Exhibition

Despite the impacts of colonisation, the Warlpiri people of Central Australia have preserved a rich philosophical worldview rooted in complex ceremonial traditions and artistic practices.

“When white explorers created their maps, they dissected this land with arbitrary lines and imposed state borders. They didn’t understand the diversity of nations and tribal people inhabiting this country. They did not know of our own stories, songlines, boundaries, and nations. Ancient tribal stories criss-cross all over this continent, tracks of totems belonging to different clans and language groups of the land they called Australia.”

Otto Jungarrayi Sims (Former Chairman of Warlukurlangu Artists)

Over the past decade, groups of Warlpiri artists in Central Australia, working in collaboration with British artist Patrick Waterhouse, have revised a collection of maps, flags, photographs, comic illustrations and other archival material. The resulting works amend assumptions inscribed in these documents, address what is missing from the historical record, and give voice to stories passed down from generation to generation by the original custodians of the land.

The largest presentation of this work in Australia to date, Revisions: made by the Warlpiri of Central Australia and Patrick Waterhouse opens at Burrinja on 25 October 2025 and runs until 1 March 2026. Curated at the Warlukurlangu Art Centres in Yuendumu and Nyirripi, the exhibition brings together works on paper, photographs, moving image and archival material.

The project began when Waterhouse travelled to Warlpiri Country with a growing archive of historical materials collected over many years, along with photographs he had made while working in Central Australia. Shared with artists, families and community members, these documents became a ground for response. 

Over sixty Warlpiri artists of different generations reworked the materials in their own ways—dot painting across maps, layering patterns onto photographs, inscribing symbols into flags and records—bringing community knowledge and lived experience to the surface.

The works can be read as revision, defacement or revelation, each one reflecting a meeting of archive and community, Country and record.

The exhibition also includes the first Australian showing of The True Story, a two-channel video installation narrated by members of the Warlpiri community. Beginning with Captain Cook’s observation of the Transit of Venus and the subsequent claim of the east coast for the British Crown, the work juxtaposes European archives with photographs and footage of desert life, reflecting on what is recorded, what is missing, and how histories are revised.

Making Revisions, a documentary showing some of this process, will also be featured in the exhibition.

The works in the exhibition were revised in the Warlukurlangu Art Centres in the Yuendumu and Nyirripi communities in the Northern Territory, in collaboration with:

Margaret Napanangka Anderson, Kirsty Anne Napanangka Brown, Joy Nangala Brown, Wendy Nungarrayi Brown, Ormay Nangala Gallagher, Pauline Napangardi Gallagher, Daniel Jupurrurla Gordon, Alma Nungarrayi Granites, Athena Nangala Granites, Charmain Napangardi Granites, Nathania Nangala Granites, Sabrina Napangardi Granites, Valda Napangardi Granites, Sarah Napurrurla Leo, Jeanie Napangardi Lewis, Jessica Napanangka Lewis, Murdie Nampijinpa Morris, Julie Nangala Robertson, Felicity Nampijinpa Robertson, Sabrina Nangala Robertson, Hilda Nakamarra Rogers, Vistaria Nakamarra Ross, Pauline Nampijinpa Singleton, Otto Jungarrayi Sims, Jacob Jungarrayi Spencer, Ruth Nungarrayi Spencer, Angelina Nampijinpa Tasman, Marilyn Maria Nangala Turner, Valma Nakamarra White, Shanna Napanangka Williams.

Curators
Warlukurlangu Art Centres in Yuendumu and Nyirripi, with artists, families and community members.

Biographies

Warlukurlangu Art Centre

Warlukurlangu is named after a Dreaming site west of Yuendumu; in the Warlpiri language it means “belonging to fire.” Established in 1985 in Yuendumu, 290 kilometres northwest of Alice Springs, it is one of the oldest Aboriginal-owned art centres in Central Australia. In 2014, another branch was opened in Nyirripi, a Warlpiri community 200 kilometres to the west. Any person in Yuendumu or Nyirripi can take part in the art centre’s activities.

In 1989, six Warlukurlangu artists installed the floor painting Yarla Jukurrpa (Bush Potato Dreaming), a 40-square-metre work, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris for the landmark exhibition Magiciens de la terre. Today, Yuendumu is one of the largest Aboriginal desert communities in Australia, with a population of 800–1,000, almost all of whom belong to the Warlpiri language group. More than half the community paints, and children are encouraged to begin making art from an early age.

The Yuendumu Men’s Museum, a stone building opened in 1971 as a site for ceremony and cultural preservation, was restored between 2006 and 2015 with the support of the Warlukurlangu Art Centre. It remains an important repository of Warlpiri art and heritage. The Warlukurlangu Artists Aboriginal Corporation is directed by an Executive Committee of men and women representing Yuendumu’s skin groups, who are active in the daily life of the centre and its wider social, economic, medical and cultural projects.

Patrick Waterhouse

Patrick Waterhouse (b. 1981, England) is an artist whose work explores the shifting nature of our understanding of the past. Through processes that play with narrative representation, his practice illuminates how histories are constructed and retold.

Collaboration is central to his practice, shaping both process and outcome. In the making of Restricted Images, Waterhouse lived and worked with Warlpiri communities in Yuendumu and Nyirripi over a five-year period, taking photographs and sharing archival materials that became sites of response. By drawing people into the process of their own representation, the project rethinks questions of agency in photography and art.

Waterhouse’s work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including Pannett Gallery, Whitby, UK (2025); Rautenstrauch–Joest Museum Kulturen der Welt, Cologne, Germany (2023); FotoMuseum, Antwerp (2019); Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque (2018); Kunsthal, Rotterdam (2017); Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao (2016); National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (2015); The Photographers’ Gallery, London (2015); National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (2014); Le Bal, Paris (2014); Biennale de Lubumbashi, DR Congo (2013); International Center of Photography Triennial, New York (2013); Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich (2011); and the South African National Gallery, Cape Town (2010). 

His work is held in major public and private collections including Centre Pompidou, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; and The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm, Germany. Awards include the Discovery Award at Rencontres d’Arles (2011) and the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (2015), with Mikhael Subotzky for Ponte City).

Burrinja Cultural Centre

Burrinja is a leading arts organisation presenting diverse cultural programming that celebrates First Peoples and contemporary Australian arts. Located in the Dandenong Ranges, Burrinja serves as a vital cultural hub connecting communities through innovative exhibitions and programs.

For media and photo opportunities contact:

Kinnear Miller
Marketing Manager, Burrinja
marketing@burrinja.org.au
Phone: 0400 680 028