
In 2016, a men’s art therapy group was founded at Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. Three years later, the group has flung itself onto the international stage at the 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN as the artist collective the “Tennant Creek Brio”. Initially spearheaded by Joseph Jungarayi Williams—then working at Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation—and Rupert Betheras—an artist and ex-professional AFL player from Collingwood—the collective brings together a cross-cultural formation of five northern and central desert language groups (Warumungu, Warlmunpa, Warlpiri, Kaytetye and Alyawarr) and a painter from Melbourne. Together, they celebrate a creole of artistic traditions, some inherited, others improvised. At Tennant Creek’s cultural crossroad, the Brio’s members—Fabian Brown Japaljarri, Marcus Camphoo Kemarre, Jimmy Frank Jnr Jupurrula, Lindsay Nelson Jakamarra, Clifford Thompson Japaljarri, Williams and Betheras—command bewildering aesthetic power in a strategy of healing and resistance to cultural alienation.