Levi and Keneisha

In Martine Perret’s project, Ngala Wongga (come and talk): Cultural Significance of Languages in the Western Australian Goldfields, she had the opportunity to meet Martu speakers. Glenys Williams took Martine on a bush trip with her family to the steps of her childhood, around the Wiluna Mission and the clay pan. They took ‘roo tails, made dampers, and sat around the fire watching the landscape and the slowly approaching storm, as her grandchildren Levi and Keneisha floated in the clay pan.

Biography:
Martine Perret started as a freelance photographer and photo desk editor at The Australian Financial Review, Sydney in 1999. Her interest in photojournalism took her to Timor-Leste (2003), where she developed a working relationship with the United Nations (UN). For the next decade, Martine covered UN peacekeeping missions in conflict zones such as Burundi, the Democratic Republic of The Congo, South Sudan and West Africa (documenting the Ebola crisis response). Now living in Margaret River, Western Australia, Martine self-published her first book, Margaret River Region FROM ABOVE. In 2015, Martine initiated a project called Gungurrunga Ngawa (Look Above) as part of the broader body of work Ngala Wongga (Come Talk). In 2016, the exhibition Ngala Wongga was inaugurated at the Goldfields Arts Centre in Kalgoorlie, before touring with Art On The Move across Western Australia and at the Australian Embassy in Paris in 2019. The Ngala Wongga book has been recently published on the National Commission for UNESCO’s website.