TRUE COLOURS
Indigenous fashion designers showcase their garments and jewellery in a groundbreaking new exhibition.
Indigenous fashion designers showcase their garments and jewellery in a groundbreaking new exhibition.
Many Australians, if asked, would have no trouble naming a French, American or British fashion designer, but might be hard pressed to name one Indigenous Australian fashionista. The Indigenous fashion community that sprung from the Aboriginal art centres established around the country from the 1970s onwards is now, less than 50 years later, making its mark on the world.
This September, Bendigo Art Gallery will be holding Australia’s first major survey of contemporary Indigenous Australian fashion. Featuring the work of more than 70 designers, artists and makers, Piinpi: Contemporary Indigenous Fashion will shine a light on Australia’s leading First Nations creatives and on a design movement that is fast becoming a national fashion phenomenon.
The exhibition has been curated by Shonae Hobson, First Nations curator at Bendigo Art Gallery. A Kaantju woman from Cape York Peninsula, Hobson says the word Piinpi comes from “my great grandmother’s language and is an expression that we use in East Cape York to describe seasonal changes and regeneration of Country. It encapsulates a lot of what the exhibition is about. For Indigenous peoples, our knowledge of the land and seasons is culturally important as it signifies the abundance of certain bush foods, when we can travel and when it is a good time to collect traditional materials for ceremony and dance.”
The exhibition is themed around the four widely recognised seasons observed by First Nations people: Dry Season (featuring garments, woven hats and traditional dilly bags made with natural plant fibres and recycled materials); Wet Season (featuring hand-painted garments, textiles and jewellery pieces); Regeneration (featuring several significant garments created by leading female textile artists from remote art centres) and Cool Season (featuring traditional possumand kangaroo-skin cloaks and emu-feather earrings). “Many of the garments selected for the exhibition are an expression of Country and contemporary Indigenous culture through the use of natural and recycled materials, traditional weaving techniques and hand-painted prints,” Hobson says. “First Nations artists and designers are expressing their culture and connection to Country in very exciting and bold ways – distinct from anything else being produced around the world – and this is something worth celebrating.”
Showcasing collections by artists such as Grace Lillian Lee, Lyn-Al Young, Maree Clarke, Lisa Waup x VERNER and Hopevale Arts, the exhibition features garments and design objects from public and private collections, as well as new collections from designers and arts centres.
“Never before have so many works by Indigenous designers and artists been brought together to this extent, and in this way,” says Bendigo Art Gallery director Jessica Bridgfoot.
• Piinpi: Contemporary Indigenous Fashion, Bendigo Art Gallery, 5 September-29 November, 2020
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The designers featured in Piinpi were all inspired by our ‘wide brown land’. If you’re planning to discover new regions for yourself, check out our favourite Australian road trips. mindfood.com/australia-road-trips
“NEVER BEFORE HAVE SO MANY WORKS BEEN BROUGHT TOGETHER IN THIS WAY.”
JESSICA BRIDGFOOT