Looks at the Santa Teresa Community 80 kilometres south of Alice Spring and home of the Arrernte people where the Keringke Arts Centre was established in 1987.
"In January 1989, I attended the second national Black Playwrights conference. I arrived at this conference feeling very unsure and insecure with nine small scenes which I had hoped would turn in to a play."
It's now early September 1989 and Aboriginal Rock Bands from the Northern Territory and interstate are travelling by any means possible to Darwin for the Sing Loud Play Strong 2nd Festival of Aboriginal Rock Music.
In every area of the arts where Aborigines are participating there is an intense surge of creative vitality. Once could call it a renaissance period. When I began writing poetry, Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonucul) was the only recognised poet.
Whatever capital city one may visit these days, there will usually be an art gallery exhibiting works from the latest Aboriginal art movement. The demand for Aboriginal painting has probably doubled every year over the past decade and nowhere is this more evident than in central Australia.
The period of 1986 - 1989 has been epoch making for Aboriginal printmaking, not necessarily because of an improvement in the quality of the prints produced during that time but because Aboriginal prints in forums broadly motivated by the centenary has allowed them to receive the recognition they deserve.