"Marungka Tjalatjunu" (Dipped in Black) / Rituals of Repair on Stolen Land Talk

In this conversation, Derik Lynch and Matthew Thorne will reflect on the making of Marungka tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black) and the reparative possibilities of collaboration across blackfella and whitefella worlds. Working through the Yankunytjatjara framework of ngapartji-ngapartji (“I give you something, you give me something”), they will discuss their experience of navigating shared authorship, shared storytelling, and the possibility of shared Country. Framed by Australia’s long and complex colonial and multicultural history, their talk will present their project and collaboration itself as a ritual act of repair: a way of bringing living Yankunytjatjara Tjukurpa, traditional Inma storytelling, queer experience, modern dance performance, and Western filmmaking frameworks into new living relation with one another across disparate cultural and historical contexts.

Matthew Thorne (b. 1993, Adelaide) is a South Australian filmmaker and artist whose work uses film, photography, and re-enactment to explore contemporary “Australian” identity, colonial inheritance, spirituality, relationship to land, and masculinity through long-term collaborations with people and places. Working between documentary and fiction, he develops projects as ritual spaces of shared reflection and transformation. Marungka Tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black), co-created with Derik Lynch, received the Silver Bear and TEDDY award at the 2023 Berlinale, and the Documentary Australia Award at the 2023 Sydney Film Festival .

Derik Lynch (b. 1986, Alice Springs) is a Yankunytjatjara artist, cultural leader, teacher, and performer whose work brings together his traditional cultural knowledge with contemporary art practice. His work engages his Anangu Tjukurpa and colonial Australia through history, memory, and present acts, often drawing on his own lived experience – including his queer identity and life growing up in remote Country. Derik’s work moves across ceremony, performance, music, film, and art. His work has been shown around the world, including performances at the Sydney Opera House and the Southbank Theatre in London, during which he was invited to an audience with Queen Elizabeth II. He is the co-creator of Marungka Tjalatjunu (Dipped in Black), a work based on his own story that reactivates his long-held cultural knowledge in the present day.

Ticket information: Admission to this event is free of charge.