Songline is a word that, at first hearing, suggests melody, a path carried by sound. It is an apt association, though not in the way one expects. Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, on display at Humayun’s Tomb Museum in Delhi, presents an Australian First Nations creation saga not as a static sequence of artefacts but as a pulsing, spatial narrative that behaves like music: cyclical, immersive and, above all, alive. The exhibition arrives in Delhi through a partnership between the National Museum of Australia and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art.
The story at its core is shared across Western and Central Australia: seven sisters pursued across deserts by a shape-shifting man, Wati Nyiru. It is a tale that holds moral instruction, ecological knowledge and spiritual law, an entire cosmology embedded in movement. What distinguishes this exhibition is not its subject but the degree of custodianship exercised by the
First Nations Elders who have shaped it. Their presence is the framework rather than an annotation.
The first gallery sets the tone. Life-sized projections of Elders from the First Nations community groups such as Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY), Ngaanyatjarra and Martu, greet visitors, inviting them to “walk the songlines”. The transition into the immersive installation that follows feels almost theatrical—a desert at dusk materialises, stars glint across darkened walls, and the sound of women singing pulls the viewer into a different world.
Art as Ecological and Spiritual Navigation
The paintings that encircle the room, dense with dots, loops and symbols initially read as abstracts, but are, in fact, maps. Songlines are not metaphorical journeys but precisely remembered routes across the country, and the visual language used to represent them is rigorous. A blue dot indicates a water source; C-shaped arcs mark the sisters’ dancing figures; horse-shoe shapes denote the women, echoing ceremonial body markings. In one sequence, the sisters attempt to evade Wati Nyiru by transforming into trees, a scene rendered through shifting projections and layered chants.
Positioned within this space is a dome, a portable, semi-circular structure that functions like a planetarium. The dome was also used for workshops conducted by visiting Elders, a detail that reveals the exhibition’s intention to serve not only as display but as active relay of the culture.
Descending to the basement, visitors enter Martu country. Here, woven baskets appear arranged like constellations, a subtle foreshadowing of the sisters’ eventual ascent into the night sky. A recorded Inma dance performance plays on loop, as we move past the artworks. A section titled Shape Shifters presents ceramic vessels that reimagine the protagonists in sculptural form. Nearby, objects associated with Wati Nyiru—spears, clubs, snake-like implements—appear not as relics but as reminders of how myth and daily life often mirror one another.
The exhibition’s conclusion is quietly affecting. The sisters rise to the sky, leaving behind their earthly possessions, while Wati Nyiru becomes a rock formation, an embodiment of the way story shapes landscape. The ending offers neither triumph nor tragedy but an acceptance that creation stories rarely resolve in binary terms.
Ethical Custodianship
Producing such an exhibition outside Australia, however, is far from straightforward. One of the KNMA curators, when asked about the logistical challenges, articulates the balance they were acutely aware they needed to maintain. “We can’t present it in a way that caters to Indian aesthetics,” he says. “We need to put it as accurately as possible. The visuals and text play a key role. The installations need to be kept in a specific temperature because they’re made of materials like grass and emu feathers, among others. It’s Australia’s national treasure.”
His remark indicates not simply curatorial diligence but the political and ethical complexity of transporting cultural material that is both spiritually charged and materially fragile. As Australian High Commissioner Phillip Green notes, the project arrives in India at a critical moment, deepening cultural dialogue as relations between the countries expand.
