Margie West AM has lived in the Northern Territory since taking up the position of Curator of Aboriginal Art and Material Culture at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) in 1978. Since 2005 she has been an Emeritus Curator with MAGNT and works as a private curatorial consultant. She was the founder of the National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award and has curated over forty semi-permanent and touring Aboriginal art exhibitions, the most recent being ReCoil: Change & Exchange in Coiled Fibre Art, and Yalangbara, Art of the Djang'kawu. She has published extensively on Aboriginal art, including contributions to the Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture and coediting with Hetti Perkins, One Sun One Moon: Aboriginal art in Australia.
Barbara Ambjerg Pedersen moved with her family from Melbourne to Mataranka in the Northern Territory as a child. At 17 years old she begin nursing at the old Darwin Hospital when Matron Bullwinkle was in charge. In the years in between then and now she has travelled the world, had a family and finally came full circle back to the Territory. Since November 2001 she has worked as Manager for Mimi Arts & Crafts in Katherine resurrecting the Art Centre, and its Aboriginal Board, following the catastrophic Australia Day Floods in 1998. Prior to that she spent some years studying at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. She has worked with the Holdfast Bay Reconciliation Group in Adelaide and was involved with the writing of the Kaurna booklet 'Footsteps in the Sand'.
Christine Judith Nicholls is a writer, curator and Senior Lecturerin Australian Studies at Adelaide's Flinders University. From 1982 to 1992 she lived and worked at Lajamanu, a remote Aboriginal settlement in the Tanami Desert of the Northern Territory, first as a linguist and then as Principal of the local bilingual Warlpiri Lajamanu School. She has also worked at various universities in other countries: for example, 2004-2005 she worked as Professor of Australian Studies at The University of Tokyo, Japan. She has published eleven books, including children's books, and more than 300 articles on Indigenous Australian art and languages, and also writes about other areas of visual art, including jewellery, ceramics, glass, and public art. Christine edits two high circulation visual arts magazines - Asian Art News and World Sculpture News, based in Hong Kong - and has curated numerous art exhibitions in Australia, Europe and Asia. She also sits on various Boards, including JamFactory Adelaide.
Chips Mackinolty has lived and worked in the Northern Territory since 1981 as an arts advisor, writer, graphic artist and in arts, social, economic and health policy areas. This included work with Mimi Aboriginal Arts 1981-1985 and Maruku in 1985 as an arts advisor. This was followed by a stint with the Northern Land Council, then extensive work with the Jawoyn Association in the 1990s. During that decade, he also co-managed Green Ant Research Arts and Publishing. He was a freelance journalist in the 1990s for the Sydney Morning Herald, Age, Australian and Bulletin, followed by varied roles working for ministers in the Northern Territory Government 2001-2009. He currently works as Research, Advocacy and Policy Manager at the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory. He exhibits in the Territory and nationally.
Yulyurlu Lorna Fencer Napurrurla was an innovator - regarded by many as the most original Warlpiri artist to emerge from Lajamanu. She was among the enthusiastic group of men and women who first took up acrylic painting at the Lajamanu School in 1986. As her mastery of the medium developed, Napurrurla developed a highly personal style to illustrate her ancestral stories. At the heart of her lifetime's work was the Yam complex that centred upon her country at Yumurrpa in the Tanami Desert of the Northern Territory, Australia.