Tong Tana, Dennis' Drawings I-VI, 2010

Dennis, a semi-nomadic Penan hunter-gatherer who was part of the expedition team working with the artist to create the moving image work Tong Tana, created this series of hand-drawn maps at the artist's request. They show the team's route as they moved on foot through the remote and sparsely populated Ba' Jawi region close to the mountainous Sarawak/Kalimantan border in Borneo. The expedition's purpose was to obtain point-of-view video footage of a Penan hunter's solo journey deep into the rainforest, tracking game equipped with a handmade blowpipe and poison darts.

Ba' Jawi, home to pristine rivers, prolific bird life and many of Sarawak’s rare and protected mammal species, is culturally important to the Penan, who have used this mystical area for hunting, traditional ceremonies and burial sites for generations. One small family currently lives there in semi-isolation from other family members who, through marriage or for economic reasons, have chosen to settle in neighbouring villages several days' walk away. With only occasional visits from outsiders bringing resupplies of modern-day luxuries such as soap, salt, tobacco, modern clothing and plastic kitchenware, they obtain almost everything they need from the surrounding forest.

For three weeks, the team, which comprised the artist, a translator and five local Penan guides, remained in the region, creating a succession of 'base camps' from which two Penan hunters took it, in turn, to journey into the forest wearing the POV equipment. The team stayed in each camp for a few days before proceeding further to vary the type of terrain, flora and fauna featured in the footage.

Dennis' Drawings document the team's journey through one of Borneo’s last remaining pristine rainforest wildernesses. Created from memory at the end of each day, without reference to other maps of the area, they trace a course navigated primarily through an acute sense of direction and an exceptional aptitude to read the landscape, rather than an intimate knowledge of the route.