In a setting steeped in history, the Abbaye du Vœu in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, the exhibition “Jarracharra: dry season wind” presents a remarkable collection of textile works by Aboriginal artists from the Babbarra Women’s Centre, one of the world’s most remote art centres, in the heart of Arnhem Land (Northern Territory, Australia). An invitation to explore the ancestral lands of Australia’s far north, this exhibition highlights the artists’ use of contemporary silkscreen and linocut techniques to represent their ancestral stories and rituals.

Exhibited for the first time in 2019 at the Australian Embassy in France on the occasion of the United Nations Year of Indigenous Languages, Jarracharra also carries a powerful call for the  preservation and transmission of Australian Indigenous languages and ancestral knowledge. Through their textile creation, the seventeen artists, belonging to nine different linguistic groups, celebrate the exceptional cultural and linguistic diversity of the Maningrida region, as well as the contribution of Aboriginal women to contemporary art and graphic design.