RISE 4: Women and Water in the Djelk Region

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: Women and Water in the Djelk Region reads shimmering artworks from Maningrida or Manayingkarirra in central Arnhem Land against the artists’ existential concern about threats to their ancestral land, sea, and waterways. This is the fourth in the RISE thematic series of exhibitions on the impacts of climate catastrophe. In keeping with the inspiration for many of the designs there are actual objects that are depicted in printed cloths in the exhibition, from objects like fishtrap to a basket (that may be symbolic), and from Barnkabarra (mud crabs) to a water bird, stingray, or barramundi (that may be ancestral).

The exhibition story 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 approval of mining proposals including highly destructive fracking methods for accessing oil and gas reserves. The works cover the area lying between the Arnhem Land plateau and extends to the Arafura Sea — internationally renowned wetlands, monsoon rainforests, tropical savannas, rivers and estuaries that support significant collections of waterbirds and shorebirds — but excludes the inland stone country. This vast area is known as the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area, part of the National Reserve Estate, managed from the coastal town of Maningrida primarily for the sustainable use of natural ecosystems — as it has been managed by Aboriginal peoples for millennia.

Two of the nation’s longest-running community based Aboriginal art centres are based here: Bábbarra Womens’ Centre and Maningrida Arts and Culture. Each centre has a distinctive cultural and economic framework and media focus. Maningrida Arts and Culture or ‘MAC’, is celebrated for fine rrark-style bark painting and exquisite weaving. A case in point is the splendour of Mun-dirra or Fish Trap in Burarra (one of at least a dozen Indigenous languages spoken in Maningrida), a collaborative work by artists from MAC displayed to great acclaim in the NGV International Triennial in Melbourne late last year.