Article: Songlines: Tracking The Seven Sisters
Songlines: Tracking The Seven Sisters
22 November 2025 - 15 March 2026
Humayun’s Tomb Museum in partnership with Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
New Delhi, India
Minyma Punu Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters Tree Woman) and Kungkarrangkalnga/ya Parrpakanu (Seven Sisters are Flying) have officially touched down in India as part of Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, presented by the National Museum of Australia.
In 2015 the National Museum of Australia collaborated with Tjanpi Desert Weavers to create a significant and unique work inspired by the Seven Sisters songlines. Tjanpi artists created these sculptures in the Blackstone Ranges between the Western and Great Victoria deserts. During a two-week camp at Kuru Ala, a remote Seven Sisters site in Western Australia, 14 weavers wove the sisters into life. They then moved to a campsite just outside Papulankutja (Blackstone) to finish the sisters. Each figure was made by two artists. For many of the figures, a senior artist paired with a younger emerging artist so that the act of creation was also one of passing on skills to a future generation of Tjanpi artists.
NPY and Martu Cultural Ambassadors were on the ground in India to open the show which brings together over 300 Anangu, Yarnangu and Martu paintings, photographs, objects, song, dance, and multimedia sharing the powerful creation story of the Seven Sisters as they journeyed across Australia’s Western and Central Deserts.
This is also the first time a major National Museum exhibition has toured India, marking another huge chapter in a journey that has already taken the kungkarangkalpa story to the UK, Germany, France and Finland. Rikina!!!
