Namatjira & Ngapartji Ngapartji: Two plays by Scott Rankin

• HSC Year 12 Prescribed Texts
• Standard Module B
• Close Study of Literature
• Drama

Namatjira and Ngapartji Ngapartji go right to the heart of the intersection between Indigenous and non-Indigenous experience. These stories of family, friendship, land, myth, life and death are contextualised within the social and political framework of their times. They resonate universally, yet at the same time capture unique moments in Australian history and experience. Namatjira tells the moving story of Albert Namatjira (1902–1959). Namatjira was Australia’s most famous Indigenous watercolour artist and the first to achieve commercial success, but his story is hardly known. Albert Namatjira’s story resonates today as strongly as it did 50 years ago, providing a lens through which we can see the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians both in the past and the present. Taking its name from the Pitjantjatjara concept of exchange and reciprocity, Ngapartji Ngapartji―co-created with Trevor Jamieson―is a deeply affecting experience of Indigenous history. Exploring themes of dispossession and displacement from country, home and family, the play tells the story of a Pitjantjatjara family forcibly moved off their lands to make way for the testing of British atomic bombs at Maralinga.