Description
Batjula has used locally sourced native materials to dye gunga and balgurr fibres a deep mol (black). In Yolngu culture miny’tji (clan designs and colours) have a long history of being owned by specific peoples and clans. Each clans miny’tji was prescribed during creation and is intertwined with complex law and ceremony. In more recent history, clans took ownership of colours as a result of generations of contact with traders from Indonesia; coloured cloth was given to different clans by the Makassan’s. The cloth was used for numerous purposes including to make flags that signify clan associations. Today flags continue to be used during ceremonies including funerals. This is one example of how identity, design and colour continue to be entwined. Mandy Batjula has been given permission from her mothers sisters to create woven works using their signature singular black colour.
Mandy Batjula is the niece of Margaret Rarru and Helen Ganalmirriwuy who are renowned for their singular use of black pandanus to create mindirr mol (black dillybags). Batjula has created her own style of mol mindirr – using a coil technique as opposed to the twined style of Ganalmirriwuy and Rarru.
