★★★½☆ Immersive Indigenous installations enthrall, though rain affects play.

Alice Springs Desert Park
September 16, 2016

By the time the full moon rose over the forecourt of the Alice Springs Desert Park a large crowd had gathered. To one side a projection screen paced through images of Aboriginal artists and their work. Coming in I had passed a ‘tree’ laden with felt beanies made by artists and children from remote Indigenous communities, canvas flags adorned with photographic digital artworks by students. I was enjoying the wide angle – the patterns of congregation, the MacDonnell ranges looming close, garden beds laden with wildflowers.

When at last we were told to move in we proceeded through a band of smoke, wafting from two tin cans being tended by a group of Arrernte women. As we passed they indicated by gesture how to draw the smoke to the face and body. The sweet scent of the bush medicine permeated the space, entered my clothing, transforming both site and self momentarily in the way of ceremony, suggesting that we would soon be taken on a journey of a kind, something outside the ordinary.

Only we wouldn’t. Instead of progressing as planned ‘along the pathway’ that...