The Tiwi people on Melville and Bathurst Islands just north of Darwin have a 30-year tradition of pottery. They have absorbed a range of influences from the British Michael Cardew to visiting potters from Australia or via annual workshops with a Swiss potter Claude Presset. Some pots were collaboratively done - thrown by experienced potters and decorated by local artists. Slab and coil pieces drew on artists' experience in wood carving and painting.

If the 70s is remembered as a period of nurture for Aboriginal art, the 1980s will certainly be remembered as the decade of its dramatic development...there has been an eflorescence of community based enterprises in the remote areas of Australia.

Margie West talks to NE Arnhem Land artist Banduk Marika about artists working in Yirrkala, an Aboriginal community. She addresses traditional ceremonies today, the appropriate use of traditional designs, payment for work, copyright, and working to redress environmental damage to the beaches and lands by regenerating native trees and plants.