Prepare to be stunned by the Boonkaj Fashion Parade, taking place at the Boab Metals Ord Valley Muster, Art In The Park, on Sunday 21 May.
The Boonkaj Collection celebrates the “emerging or coming out” of designs by five textile artists from the Waringarri Aboriginal Arts in Kununurra, Western Australia.
The artists Anita Churchill, Delany Griffiths, Dora Griffiths, Kelly-Ann Drill, and Cathy Ward have block printed textiles by hand and fashioned designs that will be showcased in the Muster’s first fashion show at Celebrity Tree Park.
The Miriwoong models, 12 females and five males aged 14 to 46, range in sizes from 8 to 20, making this a fashion show for every age, every shape and every body.
Fashion Show organiser Nita Griffiths is passionate about ensuring that the fashion showcase is inclusive.
“This will be more than a fashion show, there’ll be beautiful textiles made by our artists of course, but also some talent, a special Acknowledgement to Country and chance for everyone to come together as one mob” Nita said.
Waringarri Textiles has grown out of the Dawang Linawoong Ngoondengig-gerring(DLNg) program which provides opportunity for new and emerging artists to develop their creative cultural expressions across a range of traditional and contemporary mediums.
Dawang Linawoong Ngoondengig-gerring – a Miriwoong phrase meaning ‘place where ideas are made good’ is an ongoing arts development program focused on enabling creativity, new artistic approaches and sustainable arts practice that supports the next generation of arts leaders.
The textiles medium has engaged a growing number of new and younger artists as well as enabled emerging artists to expand their creative outputs and experiment with new designs, colours and creative opportunity.
Mentored by senior artists, Waringarri Textiles maintains cultural knowledge and enables artists to develop skills in stamp and screen printing techniques to produce unique fabric lengths on linens.
In partnership with designers, Waringarri Textiles are being produced as fashion and interiors products.
“Our dream is to develop Waringarri Textiles as a sustainable enterprise within the overall art centre operations that provides opportunity for creativity with social, cultural and economic benefits for artists and community,” said Nita.
All of the hand printed designs are created on Miriwoong Country.
Art in the Park is one of the special events in the Ord Valley Muster’s nine-day festival. The curated program includes big concerts, lunchtime sessions, station luncheons, comedy, Indigenous culture and arts and family-friendly festivities to kick off the East Kimberley’s tourism season.
The WA Government is a proud supporter of the event through Tourism WA’s Regional Events Program.
Related story: 21st Boab Metals Ord Valley Muster, 19-27 May 2023
