MIDPUL GALLERY DANALA CAMPUS

CHARLES DARWIN UNIVERSITY NORTHERN TERRITORY AUSTRALIA

FROM FIBRE TO FASHION 2025

Warnandilyakwa artists with collaborators, Dr Aly de Groot and Anna Reynolds

The fashion tells people stories about our Country and culture, we are making Warnindilyakwa warnumamalya [Warnandilyakwa people] proud and strong on the inside when they see our artworks. We keep on doing it to keep our culture alive for our children's generation and for all Indigenous people.

- Noeleen Danjibana Lalara, Senior Arts Leader and Bernadette Watts,

Arts Cultural Officer, 2025

Warnindilyakwa artists, from Anindilyakwa Arts on Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, have a reputation for their fibre weaving, 'bush dyeing' and contemporary fashion. In recent years the women have adapted their customary skills, such as pandanus weaving and natural dyeing, into making digital designs for textiles through creative collaboration with artists Dr Aly de Groot and Anna Reynolds - both alumna of Charles Darwin University.

Although experienced weavers of pandanus, the Anindilyakwa artists were inspired to extend their weaving techniques and incorporate ghost nets into their weaving repertoires, after working with fibre artist, Aly De Groot for several years. Next, they worked with textile artist, Anna Reynolds who worked with the women to photograph their weavings and manipulated them into designs in Photoshop©. The designs were then digitally printed in repeat formations on cloth: linen, silk, organic cotton, crepe and cotton jersey. The artists construct the textile lengths into garments and outfits, in collaboration with Reynolds, and in some cases, they made accompanying accessories from pandanus fibres.

These textile lengths and outfits were produced as part of the Working Women's Collection 2020. They were paraded at the Country to Couture fashion parade, presented by the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair, in 2021. That same year, Anindilyakwa Arts, Dr de Groot and Reynolds were awarded the Community Collaboration Award for the Working Women's Collection by the National Indigenous Fashion Awards.