Buying a giant bird carving at the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair seems like a great idea - until the artwork has to be transported all the way across Australia to get it home.
After a big day at the fair, Jim from Melbourne emerged from the Darwin Convention Centre with a metre high bird carving from the Ngaruwanajirri arts centre on Bathurst Island, having commandeered a friend on a road trip to bring the artwork home with him, eventually.
Carrying a big roll of bubble wrap to protect the purchase, Marianne said the event was overwhelming but enjoyable.
"It's great to see it's thriving, and the representation of all the people doing the art," she told AAP.
Since opening on Thursday, the fair is on track to see more visitors than in 2022 despite concerns about the cost of living, to the relief of executive director Claire Summers.
"We were really concerned about how tight the economy is at the moment, but it feels like there's just such a hunger for first nations culture," she told AAP.
International buyers have also returned, including collectors from the US and representatives from the French embassy, she said.
Last year more than 17,000 people attended, half of them from interstate.
The event made $4.3 million across both in-person and online sales, money that went directly to Aboriginal art centres.
"That is what's significant about our fair, you can come here and buy ethically because these are all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander owned and operated community organisations," Summers said.
"The art centres here come from some of the most remote places on earth, old ladies are speaking three or four languages and the fifth one is English."
There are 78 centres represented in 2023, with a new group of artists, Salt Water Murris Quandamooka Art Gallery from Queensland, at the fair for the first time.
While each centre has a distinct style, every year there are new developments, said Summers.
"As artists, they want to innovate, they want to experiment and it's a really great place to launch those new works," she said.
The Moa Arts stall, from Mua Island in the Torres Strait, has launched a new jewellery collection made with techniques traditionally used for turtle shell and wood carving and cast in sterling silver.
Recent allegations that white art centre workers had interfered with work produced at the APY Art Centre Collective did not appear to have dented interest in art from the region.
The collective has rejected the allegations and an initial investigation has cleared works linked to an exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, but a second government probe is still underway.
The fair is committed to ensuring it can have confidence in the collective's practices according to Summers, who said the allegations were of grave concern.
"Our first worry was for the artists and the art centres themselves and the impact that it was going to have on them," she said.
"So we just keep an eye on on that investigation and wait to see the outcomes of the inquiry that's currently underway."
