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Mat

Works in fibre from the Maningrida region are widely recognised as some of the finest in Australia. Artists confidently push the boundaries of fibre craft and cultural expression, adapting traditional techniques and forms to produce strikingly inventive and aesthetically exquisite artworks.

Commonly used fibres include the leaves of pandanus (Pandanus spiralis), and palms (Livistonus), mírlírl (burney or jungle vine, Malaisia scandens), and the inner bark of kurrajong and stringybark eucalyptus trees. Weaving is physically hard work, now done only by women. Artists commonly use a mix of naturally dyed and undyed fibre to create a striking variation of coloured bands. They colour the pandanus using natural dyes made from the roots, leaves or flowers of plants within the weaver’s clan estate. Some artists also incorporate different types of looping to produce different patterns and textured finishes. Each type of mat, fibre bag, basket and dilly bag has its own name in the various languages spoken in the Maningrida region.

Artists weave many different kinds of mats. Conical mats were traditionally used to shield babies from mosquitoes. Long flat mats were used for blocking creeks so that fish would be diverted into fish traps. A small triangular mat made of pandanus fibre used to be worn by women during ceremonial gatherings, tied around their back and covering them at the front. Mats are also used for wrapping and rinsing food in water.

Artists usually use ngarakáya, pandanus spiralis, to weave fragrant, decorative round or oblong mats, as well as the less common triangular and conical shapes. The radial woven patterns of the finest round mats appear to vibrate with colour, sometimes regarded as an aesthetic manifestation of deep cultural meaning, as there is a significant spiritual dimension to pandanus mats.

 

Name: Sylvia Marrgawaidj


Language: Burarra (Martay)


Community: Maningrida


Biography:

Galijan Sylvia Marrgawaidj is a fibre artist, specialising in woven mats and burlupurr (dilly bags). She is a Burrarra Martay speaker from Ji-Mardi homeland, located near the mouth of the Blyth River in Arnhem Land. She grew up at Ji-Mardi and moved to Maningrida community after the birth of her four children. Marrgawaidj learned to weave from her mother Bulanyjan Topsy Wulambuma and her grandmother Belinyjan Minnie Walambuma. Today she works alongside her sisters, Jennifer Prudence, Margaret  Wulambuma  and Lorna  Jin-gubarrangunyja. Marrgawaidj works with pandanus (Pandanus spiralis) which she dyes with natural pigments from roots and leaves collected on her country. She achieves a broad range of orange, yellow, red and brown hues from boiling the stripped pandanus fibres for different lengths of time and with varying quantities of the red bulb of Haemadorum breviculae grass and the bright orange roots of the Pognolobus reticulatus bush. She also creates grey from the leaves of the quinine bush, Petalostigma pubescens. Today mats are an important form of artistic expression for artists from the Maningrida region, however in the past they were functional objects used for sitting and sleeping on. 


© the artist / art centre