RISE 4: WOMEN AND WATER IN THE DJELK REGION

Opening: Saturday 6 July, 2 pm
Exhibition runs 6 July — 17 August 2024

Artists: Bábbarra Women’s Centre: Verity Bangarra, Raylene Bonson, Joy Garlbin, Janet Marawarr, Abigail Namundja, Jay Rostron, Elizabeth Wullunmingu, Deborah Wurrkidj, Lucy Yarawanga, Jocelyn Koyole. Maningrida Arts and Culture: Maureen Ali, Gloreen Campion, Joy Garlbin, Samantha Malkudja, Simone Namunjdja, Sonia Namarnyilk, Deborah Wurrkidj. Lucy Yarawanga.

RISE 4 presents paintings and weavings from Maningrida Arts and Culture and linocut and woodblock printed textiles alongside drawings from Bábbarra Women’s Centre in Maningrida, in central Arnhem Land.

The shimmering works reflect the artists’ existential concern about threats to their ancestral land, sea, and waterways. The exhibition  offers a blueprint to protect and honour fragile land and water ecosystems under increasing threat from feral animals, noxious weeds and wildfire. More recent threats are from saltwater inundation of low-lying and freshwater habitats and the approval of mining and fracking proposals. The works relate to the area lying between the Arnhem Land plateau and the Arafura Sea—internationally renowned wetlands, monsoon rainforests, tropical savannas, rivers and estuaries which support significant collections of waterbirds and shorebirds. This vast area is known as the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area, part of the National Reserve Estate, managed from Maningrida.

Women and Water in the Djelk Region, is the fourth in the RISE thematic series of exhibitions on the impacts of climate catastrophe. The exhibition includes new textile works created during creative exchange at Tharangini Studio in Bangalore India, where Bábbarra artists reinvisioned their Lino designs onto woodblock and explored eco-friendly printing methods on Indian silks.

Babbarra x Tharangini textile development supported by the Maitri Program, Centre for Australia – India Relations.