Each panel of Thanakupi’s Tribal brothers portrays a different creation story of the Thungganh tribal brothers, who forged the land, animals and customary laws. Thanakupi uses the ceramic medium to preserve and activate these stories from Napranum, near Weipa in Cape York. The tribal brothers are portrayed as animals in this large installation, and the pairings tell of the iconic animals that carved the landscape and explain how they came to look the way they do today.

Pinje (blind shark) works with his brothers Ndrrwal (long tom fish), Alandhak (barramundi) and Thungganh (flying fish), to build sandhills and a new waterhole. Another tale sees two birds fighting, striking each other in the face with clubs, their blows resulting in brahminy kite Chith’s curved beak and the flattened head of Thwal, the white-bellied eagle.