Sky Country, Parrtjima 2022. Artist digital impression.

Stand on Country and truly understand its meaning. Parrtjima is an extraordinary FREE 10-night festival in the stunning Red Centre, with an incredible program featuring light installations, artworks, performances, interactive workshops, music, film and talks. Parrtjima will help you find your place in the story.

While the times we live in might still be unpredictable, one thing that’s certain is that Parrtjima is fast becoming one of the most important First Nations arts festivals in Australia.

Last year the event, held in Mparntwe (Alice Springs), attracted more than 23,200 attendances, as people flocked to the Central Desert to experience the annual festival of light, music, installations, talks and workshops – an increase from more than 17,000 attendances in 2020. Parrtjima was one of a handful of festivals able to take place in 2021, and the spike in attendance was testament that Australians are keen to engage with the rich culture of the land’s First Peoples.

This year, Parrtjima is encouraging visitors to connect with Country once again, but also urging them to raise their gaze to the starry skies above.

Paul Ah Chee is the festival’s Director of Cultural Engagement and has worked closely with Parrtjima Curator Rhoda Roberts AO since 2017 to help deliver the event. He says that the theme of Parrtjima 2022, Sky Country, will encourage visitors to discover the enormous desert sky above Arrernte country, to cherish the symbolic values of Arrernte people and how they are connected to the sky.

‘Being on Country, and being geographically in the centre of a continent such as Australia, everything feels big; the big skies, and the language, and the songs and stories, and the whole interactive elements that have taken place for thousands of years, but also allow you to connect in a modern sense,’ Ah Chee said.

Roberts explained that ‘Sky Country’ is an important aspect of Aboriginal culture. ‘We honour our land, our water, our culture [but] a lot of people haven’t heard of Sky Country. Reading the sky helps Aboriginal people understand their place on Country … We thought it would be a really nice introduction to Central Australia and Parrtjima,’ she said.