A COMMON THREAD
How Territory designs are bringing independence to Cambodian workers
THE Creation Mother wades through the clear, flowing creeks of the Stone Country, woven dilly bags hanging from her head. Another spirit woman, the mermaid-like yawkyawk, pulls a trespasser underwater in a swamp filled with crocodiles.
Namarrkon, the lightning man, cuts a frightening, alien figure as he claps his stone axes together, bringing thunderheads rolling in from across the rocky escarpment.
IN a small arts centre set by a billabong in Gunbalanya, images from these vivid Aboriginal dreamtime stories are being hand-printed onto long rolls of fabric.
“It all comes back to the rock art,” says Injalak Arts cofounder Gabriel Maralngurra.
The printed designs are drawn from ochre paintings found in the boulder formations strewn across the Stone Country — an ancient rock plateau that rises dramatically from the northern floodplains in these Aboriginal-owned lands.
The indigenous community of Gunbalanya, nestled at the western edge of Arnhem Land, is home to Injalak Arts and a population of 1200 mainly Kunwinjku people.
Today, the swollen waters of the nearby billabong have flooded the red dirt road behind the arts centre. A saltwater crocodile has been spotted walking the streets close by.
Inside, master printers Virgil Nalorlman, Rueben Managku and assistant Daniel Nawirridj are at work on an intricate design featuring a possum, painted by Kunwinjku artist Graham Badari. Mixing bright pink and white inks directly onto a stencilled screen, the printers stroke the colours back and forth across the linen, passing the rubber squeegee over the table.
The finished roll is destined for Phnom Penh, part of a collaboration between these Arnhem Land artists and a talented clique of designers and garment workers in Cambodia.
Gabriel says the project is proving an economic success for all involved.
“We are proud of our culture and happy about what we came up with, adapting the rock art to screen printing,” he says.
“We are getting more younger ones involved, getting the up-and-coming artists.”
It is a continuation of a tradition dating back thousands of years — with a modern, globalised twist.
Soon, the printed fabrics will be packed up and shipped off abroad, for the next stage in their cross-cultural journey.
IN a small sewing workshop behind a boutique on Phnom Penh’s Street 240, one of the Cambodian capital’s quirkier shopping enclaves, seamstress Pich Sophee cuts a dress from one of the Top End fabrics.
Sophee is part of a closely knit team at A.N.D. Fair Trade, a Cambodian fashion brand that works with local artisans.
Along with Villageworks, Watthan Artisans and Kravan House, A.N.D. transforms Injalak’s rolls into wearable art: handbags, tote bags, backpacks, shirts, tops, dresses and accessories.
In a country where low-
wage jobs at garment factories are often the best option for those joining the workforce, these small-scale enterprises try to make a difference to the lives of a few Cambodians. Their workshops offer better pay and conditions than the factories, and many of their artisans work from home.
In the city’s northwestern neighbourhood of Tuol Kork, workers from Kravan House are piecing together some of their latest creations for Injalak. The cotton reels are spinning, the sewing machines are singing and there is a convivial atmosphere among the workers.
Witnessing their deftness of touch and surety of movement, it comes as a surprise to learn all of these employees have a disability.
Kravan House founder Hok Thanan is a disabled person herself, with malformed hands from the napalm used in the Vietnam War. From a young age, Thanan was told she would always be reliant on handouts.
“When I was young, they said I am disabled, that I cannot do anything,” she recalls.
“I listened to them, but I said one day I will earn income myself, help disabled people, and bring change.”
In the late 90s, when Thanan was working for Cambodia’s National Center of Disabled Persons, she realised she could help people in more direct ways.
For although charity organisations were helping disabled people with training and skills, no real market existed for their products or abilities. So, in 2003, Thanan set up Kravan House.
“I set up the shop and provided a market,” she says. “If disabled people have good skills, it means they can stand by their own, and show the people in the public they can support themselves and their family.”
The collaboration with Injalak is a boon for Kravan House workers, who take a keen interest in the crosscultural product.
“They ask first, ‘what is the type of animal? What is the story?’” Thanan says.
“I tell them these are from the original people of Australia, the drawings from their rock art. I love this project because Injalak provide a chance for us to give work to people here, and to promote relationships between Cambodians and Australians.”
BACK on the streets of Gunbalanya, the arrival of the first Cambodian-made garments causes quite a stir.
Injalak Arts co-manager Isaiah Nagurrgurrba recalls seeing the clothes sewn from their NT fabrics for the first time, as Injalak artists paraded about town in their new work shirts.
“People were really happy when they first saw them, when they see us mob wearing the shirts,” Isaiah says. “Everybody was saying ‘Can I please have one?’”
Clothing and fabric orders have been pouring in from Injalak’s online store, while visitors — tourists from near and far — have been stopping by the art centre in droves.
“When it’s dry season, this place, us mob, we are working flat out, because now everybody knows Injalak,” says Isaiah, an artist and printer who is also a tour guide, bringing visitors from nearby Kakadu National Park to the arts centre.
Here, woven mats, baskets, barks and canvasses line the walls in a visual tumult that is both ancient and stunningly contemporary.
“They come here and start looking this way — especially the women — they start looking at this,” he says, pointing at a Cambodianmade silk dress displayed among the storyboarded history of Kunwinjku art.
Visitors are taking a keen interest in this new direction, he says, in wearable garments borne from a rich mixture of cultural styles.
In the shade outside, a handful of local women are weaving fibre baskets and mats.
Many of these women are also artists and screenprinters who work collaboratively on their designs. On the opposite side of the building, country music plays on the radio.
Gabriel is cooking up a feed of buffalo steaks and the men are at work on new paintings.
Isaiah motions around the workshop space, with its simple cinder-block walls and concrete floor covered in paint.
“People who come here, we are all families — people can talk, and try to teach the young people to do the painting and printing,” he says.
For Isaiah, the spirit of the ancestors and their teaching is still strong.
“This is where the old people taught us, when I was learning.”
Far away, across the ocean in the southeast Asian city of Phnom Penh, workshops whirr into life, with newly sewn garments piling up in corner, ready to return to Australia.
Back in Arnhem Land, soon it will be wet season again, and the road out to Darwin will be cut.
The croc-filled waters of the East Alligator will swirl over the crossing, swollen from monsoonal rains.
In the Injalak print room, two women artists are bundling up fabric designs for Cambodia, and life rolls on as usual.