Fringe artists find power in collective spirit

Young is from Tangentyere Artists - an indigenous art centre established five years ago in Alice Springs to help town camp artists produce and market their work, and to offer them an alternative to the unscrupulous dealers who swoop to collect the easy pickings of the town centre.

"It's great that now there's a body that's dedicated to the town camp artists because we provide a much wider range of services than a dealer will because we're here to service and return the profits to the artists," says the art centre's co-ordinator Liesl Rockchild.

"You're trying to wean people off being dependent on the carpetbaggers who drip feed people with grog and food and motor cars. Everywhere, in hotels around town this is going on … they're just like sweat shops."

Tangentyere represents about 430 indigenous artists who speak some 20 different languages, but all of whom live in the 18 town camps that surround Alice Springs. Next month, in a fitting celebration of their fifth anniversary, Tangentyere Artists will have their first international exhibition, at Singapore's ReDot Gallery, which specialises in Australian indigenous art. The Tangentyere Artists are also planning a show at the Mossenson Gallery in Melbourne at the end of the year.