Moving forward together

It is important that we make these mats, baskets, fish trap, and many other artworks – leaving a legacy and teaching the younger generation. When we are gone our children will take over the weaving in the future.

We want to keep Bush Gallery going. We feel happy to go to the homelands - the wäŋa-waṯaŋu (land owners) welcome artists to their land. Already artist mala and young ones have come together at Laŋarra, and now we are dreaming to have Bush Gallery at other homeland communities and where the Art Centres are.

Bush Gallery is visiting Country, and we bring dhäwu (story), all our dhäwu (stories) from our own communities and what we have been creating. These dhäwu are shared with all miyalk (women), connecting us together and helping us share ideas.

Bush Gallery 2027

Plans are in the works for Bush Gallery 2027 to be held at Gapuwiyak, approximately 500km east of Darwin. Gapuwiyak is home to a small Yolŋu community, including senior weavers Lucy Wanapuyngu and Kathy Ninyapuya Guyula.

Bush Gallery 2027 participants will include senior and emerging artists from Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka, Bula’bula Arts, Gapuwiyak Culture and Art, Maningrida Arts and Culture, and Milingimbi Art and Culture.

For partnership opportunities or to support this event, please contact Trevor at Gapuwiyak Culture and Arts.

A message from linguist, Salome Harris
I was present to record the artists’ and TO’s stories. It was wonderful to receive the hospitality of the TO's on their own Country and to experience their generosity. There was good feeling at the camp.

It is rare for the artists to have a forum to speak about the meaning and the subtleties of their work with other artists who share the same language and world view. For a change they were working for each other rather than explaining their work to the outside world. Stories emerged from being with kin on Country that are embedded in those relationships. Some people don’t know that the artists occasionally buy each other’s work and gift it to each other. This shows the strength of the practice here – the work is meaningful within the community. Opportunities like Bush Gallery are important because of the unique way it enriches artists and their practice.

National Weaving prize advocacy - A message for Telstra
Laŋarra Bush Camp weavers spoke about how to get Indigenous weaving practices further recognised and one outcome was to advocate for a specific weaving prize in the highly regarded Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA), held each year at Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT). 

We want a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art (NATSIAA) Weaving Award.
Weaving is a contemporary art form that requires intensive labour and the transmission of specialist cultural knowledge. Currently, woven works in the NATSIA Awards are grouped within the broader three-dimensional category, alongside many different sculptural practices. This does not adequately recognise the distinct skills, time, and cultural responsibility involved in weaving.

A dedicated NATSIAA Weaving Award would:

- Properly acknowledge weaving as a significant contemporary art practice
- Recognise the intensive labour and expertise required of weavers
- Support the continuation of weaving knowledge across generations
- Encourage younger artists to learn and sustain this vital cultural practice.

Make a prize just for the weavers.
Keep this practice strong and visible, the same way bark painting has been recognised and supported.

To support this, artists Anniebell Marrngamarrnga and Samantha Malkudja created two mobile phones woven from jungle vine and pandanus. During Laŋarra Bush Gallery 2024, the artists gave the woven phones to the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) Curator of Aboriginal Art and Material Culture, Rebekah Raymond, asking that they be passed on with a message to MAGNT Director Adam Worrall and Telstra CEO Vicky Brady. The phones carry a message from the artists and art and culture centres who attended Dhuwal Bush Gallery, Laŋarra.