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Faculty of Law, Business & Arts
Charles Darwin University
Darwin NT 0909
T: +61 8 8946-6830
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CDU collaboration creates innovative design for future

17 June 2009

Creative Arts and Humanities lecturer and printmaker Bobbie Ruben recently presented a paper at the Selling Yarns 2: Innovation for Sustainability conference, held at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

Ms Ruben's paper outlined a project she completed earlier this year, involving a collaboration between CDU, Indigenous artists from the Babbarra Women's Centre in Maningrida, and Publisher Textiles, a Sydney-based screen printing studio.

The project involved six Indigenous artists from Babbarra Designs creating 350 commissioned textile prints for the Mantra Pandanas apartments in Darwin.

The project began in 2006 when Marianne Dyason, Lecturer in Architecture and Design at CDU and interior designer of Mantra Pandanas, approached Babbarra Designs to create textiles for use as framed artworks.

The resulting prints are impressive in scale, design and content, and portray the authentic and traditional imagery of the central Arnhem Land region.

View the artists and prints in this image gallery >>

Ms Ruben has been operating textile workshops in remote communities across the Top End for the past five years and facilitated the project. She is currently working with several Indigenous communities to assist in the development of employment opportunities and sustainable industries.

"This successful collaboration between artists living in indigenous communities, educational institutions and multi-national corporations, is without precedent in this region," Ms Ruben said.

"It was of significant benefit to all participants, whether they be the artists, the facilitators, CDU or the Saville Hotel Group operating the Mantra Pandanus."

Ms Ruben said three of the artists travelled to Canberra to participate in the delivery of the paper and, while in Canberra, were approached by an organisation who commissioned them for further designs.

"Barbarra Designs is looking forward to developing similar projects, which will become an intergral part of developing a sustainable textile business for the women of Maningrida," she said.

The Selling Yarns 2: Innovation for sustainability conference, which addressed contemporary Indigenous craft and design practice, was held in Canberra from March 6 to 9, 2009.