Last week's installation of Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters) by the Tjanpi Desert Weavers would have previously seen the artists travel from Warakurna in Western Australia to the gallery to instruct curators about the positioning of the eight life-sized figures.

Due to coronavirus and border closures, the artists had to instead tune in over Zoom to help direct Special Project Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island art department curator Kelli Cole and the gallery team.

"It's a fun process, but it can be quite ... not difficult it's just a different process," Ms Cole said.

"And there's a language barrier. The women are speaking in Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, and they've got an arts centre coordinator who's communicating with them in their language, and that's then translated back to me.

"There are some words that I know. As an Aboriginal myself and coming from Central Australia I've grown up listening to this language and speaking bits of this language so I've grown up knowing the basics of it.

"That's the reason why we have Indigenous curators working in the Aboriginal Torres Strait Island department because we understand the cultural intricacies."

The artwork was installed as part of the upcoming Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now exhibition that will open to the public in November.

As the name suggests, the exhibition will showcase art made by women, bringing together more than 300 works drawn from the gallery's collection and other collections from across Australia.

Although, the Tjanpi Desert Weavers' artwork almost didn't make it into the exhibition.

Know My Name was originally set to open in May but was delayed due to coronavirus. However, the Tjanpi Desert Weavers piece - which was commissioned by the National Gallery of Australia - would not have been ready for that date and was originally set to be a stand-alone piece.

But with the exhibition's new date, as well as the expansion that it underwent - going from more than 150 pieces to 300 - Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters) will now be front and centre when visitors enter the exhibition when it opens its doors come November.

"It's a very powerful work. We're very proud to have it in the Know My Name exhibition," Ms Cole said.

"It was a commission ... which means that we didn't get to see the work and say we need to buy that for the collection.

"We commissioned the artists to do it over a several month period, and you never know what you get with a commission.

"But we are very proud of the outcome and working with the Tjanpi artists has just been amazing."

READ MORE:

Ms Cole travelled to Warakurna at the beginning of the artwork's creation earlier in the year where she spent four weeks with the artists while they made the piece.

The process began with a three-day camping trip where they discussed the Dreaming story of the seven sisters, which the work is based on. In fact, it's the Dreaming story which also inspired the paintings that will surround the installation when the exhibition opens.

After the story was discussed, Ms Cole and the artists went out and harvested the minarri grass that was used to create the eight statues - of seven women and one man - as well as the dome hanging over them that represents a cave.

It was then wrapped in jute yarn and raffia, which is a representation of the colour of the desert where they live.

"We're really lucky when I was on Country making these works with the ladies but I had to remove myself out of Western Australia in March when we got the call that anyone who wasn't essential had to leave the community," Ms Cole said.

"The actual dome was finished by the women themselves without me as a curator there."

Tjanpi Desert Weavers represents more than 400 women artists from 26 remote communities in the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, an area about 350,000 square kilometres in size and spans the tri-state border between Northern Territory, Western Australia, and South Australia.

While not all 400 women came to help create the work, Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters) did have artists who had travelled a couple of hundred kilometres to Warakurna and spend three to four weeks working on the piece.

"The difference between with Tjanpi artists is that they make an object or a sculpture, they take it to the arts centre, they get money directly straight away so it's a process that happens immediately," Ms Cole said.