Maningrida Arts & Culture is one of Australia's oldest Aboriginal community-controlled art and culture centres, dating back to 1973. Located in central west Arnhem Land, it supports artists from 12 language groups, 32 homelands and 110 clans.
Manngarre, meaning jungle in Kuninjku language, and Mannga its equivalent in Burarra/Gun-nartpa respectively, is an exhibition of intricately woven works by women fibre artists of the Maningrida region.
Artists work with locally harvested natural fibres, including the leaves of pandanus (Pandanus spiralis), palms (Livistona spp.), mirlarl (burney or jungle vine, Malaisia scandens), and the inner bark of kurrajong and stringybark eucalypts. These materials are carefully gathered from the surrounding bush and dense jungle thickets, reflecting the artists' deep knowledge of and connection to their ancestral lands.
Weaving is physically demanding work, now only done by women. The fibres are coloured using natural dyes made from the roots, leaves or flowers of plants found within the weavers' clan estates. The same dye bath is often used for multiple batches of fibre, with subtle variations in colour emerging according to the length of time the fibres are immersed and the strength of the dye. Salt and wood ash are skilfully used as mordants to enrich and fix the colours.
The fibre works in Manngarre/Mannga are far more than earthy objects. They embody cultural knowledge, storytelling and innovation, carrying generations of inherited practice while continually evolving through individual creativity. Each work tells a story, not only through its weaving techniques and intricate forms, but also through the natural materials found in the bush and jungle areas that are intrinsically connected to the weaver's Country and clan estate.