2024

Exhibition: Works from Oak Valley Artists

Flinders Medical Centre - Arts in Health

Oak Valley is located in the far western region of South Australia on the the Maralinga Tjarutja lands. Artists residing in Oak Valley have familial ties to the Far West Coast region of SA, as well as Tjuntjuntjara and Cundalee in WA. Bordering the Great Victoria Desert, Oak Valley boasts some beautiful scenery - brilliant red soil, native eucalypts and of course, the native Desert Oak which the township is named after.

“Long time ago, before whitefellas came, Anangu lived on their lands for thousands of years. The land was their life. They loved the land. They cared for the Country. They knew all its secrets and they taught those secrets to their children and their children’s children, tjamu to tjamu (grandfather to grandson), kapali to Kapali (grandmother to granddaughter). Oak Valley people have these stories and also the story of displaced people due to the Maralinga atomic bombs".”

Maralinga The Anangu Story, by Yalata, Oak Valley Communities with Christobel Mattingley, 2010.