Tjanpi Desert Weavers at 30: how 400 Indigenous women in remote Australia took the art world by storm

‘The Tjanpi Desert Weavers’ magnum opus’: the women with their woven Seven Sisters sculptures. Photograph: Vicki Bosisto/National Museum of Australia

It was about seven years ago, in the remote Northern Territory community of Imanpa, that Pitjantjatjara artist Julie Anderson first tried her hand at the art of tjanpi (wild harvested grass) weaving.

“My aunty taught me how to do it at her place,” she says. “I didn’t like it at first but she said, ‘Give it a go!’ Once I started and learned the steps, I liked it, and now I do it all the time.”