Pankalangu Cabinet
Edition of 3 + 2 AP
Broached Monsters
Designer
Year
2017
Dimensions
H 2100mm × W 1200mm × D 570mm
Materials
Queensland walnut, copper, brass, moulded plywood. *Subsequent editions will be made using Tasmanian Blackwood timber due to the scarcity of Queensland walnut
Availability
Available now. Subsequent editions made to order on a lead time of 24 weeks
Exhibitions
Jing Art, Gallery All, 2021; Design Storytellers: The Work of Broached Commissions, NGV, 2018–2019; Spazio Rossana Orlandi, Milan, 2019
Price
AUD $140,000

The Pankalangu Cabinet is adorned with scales made from Queensland walnut and copper, two materials that blend in an absence of light, but when the light catches these copper scales the hulking form of this creature is defined by a glistening silhouette.

Pankalangu is one of three groups of creatures whom frequent Western Arrernte country. He is a territorial being that lives in the scrub and is completely camouflaged in the desert and bush. Pankalangu can only move with the rain, and is made visible when the water droplets that falls over his body are caught by the light, defining his form.

Prior to colonisation Australia was imagined, in the northern hemisphere, as a vast southern landmass and little else was factually known. Fabulous creatures, of incredible proportions and improbable anatomy, filled the void of knowledge. Fear of these creatures was legitimised when early British colonists started to learn of the frightful monsters of Aboriginal folklore. This fear of what lurked in the unknown fathoms of Australian bush land soon became a point of cultural confluence for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.