Sacred Site - Tjangika (Linda Syddick) Napaltjarri

This painting centres on Wilkinkarra (Lake Mackay), an important sacred site in the Gibson Desert near the border of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Lake Mackay is a vast salt lake and a place of great ancestral power, formed and animated through the journeys of the Emu and Kangaroo Ancestors.

Within Jukurrpa (Dreaming), the Emu and Kangaroo travelled across this Country, shaping the land, creating pathways and establishing sacred places that continue to hold spiritual presence. Their movements explain the features of the landscape and define the laws and responsibilities that govern people’s relationships to this site. Lake Mackay is not only a physical place, but a living ceremonial landscape where ancestral actions remain embedded in the ground, the water and the surrounding Country.