SISTERS OF ARNHEM LAND

May has been a busy but exciting month for us, when we embarked on a road trip through the Australian continent to explore the aboriginal craft culture. For two weeks we drove 5400 kms from Darwin to Melbourne, visiting selected art and craft centers and met up with basket weavers in north, central and south Australia. A memorable trip through a magnificent Australian outback that  gave us a valuable insight into the aboriginal culture and traditional ways of living today. 

Many of the indiginous communities are situated in remote and restricted areas where non-aboriginal people need permits to enter. Living close with nature the aboriginal people can maintain the cultural and spiritual traditions of their anscestors. Most of the art and craft centers are aboriginal owned and play an important role in the cultural lives of these remote communities.

An extra long wet-season this year with massive floodings has made many communities in Arnhem Land inaccessible by road until just recently. Injalak Art and Craft Center in Oenpelli about 300 kms east of Darwin, is one of them. Situated in a truly beautiful area, surrounded by wide flood plains, spectacular rock formations with ancient rock paintings and billabongs. Bordering onto the true magical Kakadu National Park, it is the home of an aboriginal community of about 1400 inhabitants.

Injalak started 25 years ago and today about 200 local artists produce traditional fibre art, textile printing and paintings. Basket weaving is considered women's business while painting and textile printing is mainly done by men. All artists are paid up front for their work and the profit goes directly to the community. We met up with a few women artists to learn about traditional basket weaving.

The baskets are made from the leaves of the Pandanus tree which are typical for Arnhem Land area where fibre art has a very long tradition. In the early days the baskets were used to carry food and weaving materials but now they are mainly made to make a living and to keep the craft tradition alive.

The fibers are still dyed in a natural way with local berries, seeds and plants and are woven into colorful fibre objects. The colors of the baskets depend on the dyes available at the time, and baskets made in the wet season are usually brighter in color than the ones made during the dry season. Weaving is a natural part of daily life for the women and basketmaking gives them a fairly good income.

 The weaving skills are taught from mothers to daughters and granddaughters and with that a wealth of knowledge and cultural traditions are passed on.

“I ask them, What is this? They say, It’s a basket. I say, It’s not a basket, it tells a story, like you might write a story in a book. But without books. We have our hands and the basket - the colors and patterns in a basket are like letters, commas, capital letters. They are the message. With the diffrent colours, the different stichings, you start from small up and up and up. It’s like going through the university. 

...

When my grandmothers collected food, they saved it in a basket and shared it. Now we are putting our knowledge in the basket and we share it - mother to grandchildren - and now you have to share it with your family. Our stories are stories about connections between all women. It doesn’t matter which colour, we’re all the same. “

Lak Lak Burarrwanga / Weaving lives together at Bawaka 

Read more about Injalak Arts and Crafts on their webpage www.injalak.com