This genre of work was first exhibited in the ground breaking exhibition ‘Murrŋiny -stories of metal from the east’. Binygurr was a key artist in that show. This exhibition was held in conjunction with salon Art Projects at the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art in Darwin in August 2021. It sold out and received national media exposure. Yolŋu have repurposed found metal since first contact with Makassans. Balanda outsiders first knew them as the Murrŋiny a name given to them by neighbouring groups which references their steel spearheads. The Found movement was originated by Gunybi Ganambarr around 2011 when the elders endorsed recycled materials as acceptable to render sacred designs. This is a repurposed sign.
The work depicts early events during Ancestral (and present) times at Yalata close to the Dhudi-Djapu clan homeland of Dhuruputjpi (about three hours drive South West from Yirrkala). It is a coastal fringe area, this Dhudi Djapu homeland, that has territory leading up a river through plains country behind an area of coast on Blue Mud Bay. The plain is tidal and during the wet seasons it is flooded by the rains and tidal surge creating areas of brackish water. During the dry season the grass and black earth dry out. Then the fires come, turning a swamp into a huge plain of cracked black earth. Fresh water springs dot this sun baked plain forming small islands of vegetation and as Rarrandada (the hot time) builds the thirsty birds come to these sacred springs in their thousands. The noise of the gudurrku or dhaŋgultji (brolgas) and gurrumaṯji (magpie geese) are deafening, the mud scored with their tracks and the sky dark with the flocks of wheeling birds. In Ancestral times, activities of Mäna the shark and the Djaŋ’kawu took place here. The Djaŋ’kawu – the Dhuwa moiety Creator Beings, in naming this country for the Dhudi Djapu, created these sacred fresh water springfed waterholes by plunging their sacred digging sticks in the ground. Freshwater sprung from these wells as did a sacred goanna, a manifestation in some circles of the Djaŋ’kawu themselves. Story has it that on surfacing the goanna saw the first sun rise. Also on the wet clays around the wells the goanna observed the footprints of Daŋgultji the Brolga.  This floodplain is bordered by the ancient post Ice Age coastline which posits a connection between the Yolngu and the Yanyuwa who are both isolates of the Pama-Nyungan language family surrounded by non-PY and who each have place names ending in the suffix -tjpi which align with the same old coastline. Professor Howard Morphy suggests these groups were together in land which is now the Gulf of Carpenteria before the rising waters separated them.