Livery of the week: Qantas special

Qantas has unveiled a special livery honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians on its latest Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The new livery features the work of the late Northern Territory artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye. It is based on her 1991 painting, Yam Dreaming, and has been adapted for the aircraft by leading Indigenous-owned design studio Balarinji. The artwork depicts the culturally significant yam plant, an important symbol in Emily’s Dreaming stories and a staple food source in her home region of Utopia. The aircraft itself will be named Emily Kame Kngwarreye in tribute to the artist. A team of more than sixty worked with Balarinji to install the design onto the aircraft, taking more than ten days to complete. There are close to 5.000 dots on the aircraft.