Virginia Keft, pinampi madjam guruwa dja (Remember the flying fox in the gum tree), 2025, Eucalyptus timber, fibre, wire, 45 x 165 x 13. 2025 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory; photo: supplied by artist
Our October laurel, Virginia Keft, creates fibre works that honour the grey-headed flying fox, whose colonies reflect the link between ecology and culture.
“I tread softly on the Country of my grandmother’s birth. We turn in a slow circle and sit at the meeting place. The guruwa (gum trees) sing and sway by the Barwon River. ‘Nuwa ganda, look up,’ says Aunty. My eyes follow. Madjam – flying fox – hang and wait for dusk. ‘Pinampi’ says Aunty. It means listen and remember. Our hands work the fibres. The river birds ready for night and the guruwa leaves under me have pressed and imprinted on my bare legs. The central motif of the flying fox symbolically references my connection to place, family and culture.”
Virginia Keft
Dr Virginia Keft, a proud Muruwari woman now living on Dharawal Country, creates woven sculpture, painting and installation that explore cultural memory, belonging and resilience. Her work Pinampi madjam guruwa dja (Remember the flying fox in the gum tree), exhibited at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory for the 2025 Telstra NATSIAA, depicts five Grey-headed Flying Foxes roosting from a eucalyptus branch. Woven from fibre and natural materials, the work is at once a figurative study and a symbolic reflection on kinship, place and intergenerational knowledge. The flying fox is a recurring motif in my practice, a constant presence through woven, sculptural and installation work, embodying kinship, resilience and connection to Country.
Kinship as Ecology
On Dharawal Country, where I live and work, there are tens of thousands of Grey-headed Flying Foxes that camp amongst our suburban trees and trace their paths across the twilight sky. Flying foxes are ecological caretakers: These vulnerable animals are vital to the health of the ecosystem, pollinating eucalyptus forests and dispersing seed. While I hope to build awareness about these incredible animals from an ecological perspective, they are also deeply symbolic: they are kin, creatures whose tightly woven communities mirror the strength of family, responsibility and cultural care. Their tightly knit colonies are a living metaphor for cultural responsibility. They remind us that survival is not individual, it is communal. Like family, they hold each other through distance, weather, and time. To see them as kin is to understand that ecology is not separate from culture, it is kinship in action.
Virginia Keft, pinampi madjam guruwa dja (Remember the flying fox in the gum tree), 2025, Eucalyptus timber, fibre, wire, 45 x 165 x 13. 2025 Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards, Museum and Art Gallery of Northern Territory; photo: supplied by artist
Listen to Remember
I weave in my studio, but just as often I take my work outdoors. The portability of weaving means I can keep creating wherever I am—at home, on Country, or while travelling.
The word pinampi is a Muruwari word. Its literal meaning is ‘ear,’ yet it carries a layered resonance: ‘to hear’ and simultaneously, ‘to remember.’ I find this beautiful, the idea that hearing is at once in the present, but also inextricable from the act of remembering the past. This unique way of thinking captures something profound about how we hold Culture. Listening is not passive; it is an active form of remembering. Every act of hearing is bound to story, to family, and to place.
Weaving is a practice handed down generationally, connecting the past to the present. I work extensively with natural materials: eucalyptus wood and bark, fibre, raffia, leaves, and seeds. These carry with them their own stories and presences. They hold resilience, memory, and the imprint of place.”
Weaving, for me, is more than technique: it is an act of listening, of remembering, of being present with Country.
Pinampi madjam guruwa dja invites audiences to slow down, breathe and look up; to honour the stories embedded in sky and tree, and to remember the threads of connection that bind us across time, place and Country.
Pinampi madjam guruwa dja (Remember the flying fox in the gum tree), is on view at the 2025 Telstra NATSIAA Awards at the Museum of Northern Territory, Darwin until 26 January.
About Virginia Keft
Dr Virginia Keft is a proud Muruwari woman and interdisciplinary artist based on Dharawal Country. Her practice spans weaving, sculpture, painting and installation, exploring themes of cultural memory, resilience and belonging. Alongside her studio practice, she leads bangawarra Art Yarns, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander program at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. Visit www.virginiakeft.com, follow @virginia_keft and @keftworks_studios. (photo: Jasper Keft)
