A striking array of textile art produced collaboratively by Indigenous women from the Northern Rivers region of NSW is currently gracing the halls of Boomalli Aboriginal Art Gallery in Leichhardt.
Titled “Fabric of Our Culture”, the show presents the work of three groups of women artists: the Wake Up Time Group from Casino, the Saltwater Women of Ballina, and the People of the Reed from Cabbage Tree Island.
Robert Appo, Indigenous Arts Development Officer for Arts Northern Rivers, who curated the exhibition, explains that each of the three groups included in the show also work independently in their communities. Their artworks combine traditional Aboriginal textile craft practices, such as plant dying, with contemporary techniques such as resist dying methods, hand-painting fabrics, screen-printing, and batik.
“The women have woven their stories, both traditional and contemporary into the textile pieces and are excited to have the opportunity to share their unique experiences of Aboriginal life in Northern NSW with the broader community,” Appo says.
The works on show include hand-dyed, overprinted, painted and stitched art quilts; a collection of lamps constructed from natural plant fibres interwoven with silk dyed with Indigenous plant dyes; and a mural mapping the traditional movement of people between the recognised Indigenous sites of Cabbage Tree island, Evans Head and Ballina, made from hand dyed and printed textiles and stretching to five metres in length.
According to Appo, the exhibition reflects the continuation of Bundjalung culture throughout what has been, in part, a painful past. “Alongside recognition of ancestral paths, traditional ceremonies and food gathering are stories of massacres and Aboriginal station life. All of these things happened at one time or another in Bundjalung Country.”
The exhibition continues until August 6. Boomalli Gallery is at 55 Flood St, Leichhardt. www.boomalli.com.au
By Annette Maguire
