Discovering the Barrier Range Dragon

We are at the beginning of a collaborative process with research scientists and ecologists to make work about an endangered dragon that lives around Broken Hill - the small but showy Barrier Range Dragon, Ctenophorus mirrityana.  This project is part of The Art of Threatened Species,  an initiative of Orana Arts and the Office of Environment and Heritage, bringing artists and scientists together to make work about 10 threatened species distributed throughout NSW.

November is a time when the Barrier Range Dragon is active (mirrityana is a Paakintji word for “out in the sunlight” ). We have just been out with researchers Gerry Swan and Lyndy Marshall to find and observe them, learn about their natural history and the threats to their survival. We walked with Paakintji man, Kenau Bates, from Mutawintji Cultural Tours, who showed us amazing petroglyphs and stencilled rock art made by the Old People, (there are petroglyphs of various kinds of lizards at Mutawintji). We camped out bush, and met some wonderful people in Broken Hill, on our journey to learn more about the cultural connections to this fascinating creature, Mirrityana.

This short video doccuments our trip with some of our images and field recordings from Mutawintji National Park.

Thanks to
Mutawintji Local Aboriginal Land Council
Gerry Swan & Lyndy Marshall 
Broken Hill Art Exchange 
Ann Evers & Rick Ball
Ruby Davies 
West Darling Arts 
Office of Environment and Heritage
Broken Hill Regional Gallery 

We acknowledge the Paakintji people who are the traditional custodians of the land on which we camped