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Kunkurra (Spiral Wind)

‘My designs, they are all alive living up in my head’- Janet Marawarr

Janet Marawarr has depicted kunkurra, the spiralling wind associated with several sites in the Kardbam clan. On one level, this design can be interpreted as a depiction of the kinds of mini-cyclones common during the wet season in Arnhem Land, where the artist lives. Kunkurra also relates specifically to a site called Bilwoyinj, near Mankorlod, on the artist’s clan estate.

At this site, two of the most important Kuninjku creation beings, a father and son known as na-korrkko, are believed to have hunted and eaten a goanna. They left some of the goanna fat behind at the site, which turned into the rock that still stands there today.

Bilwoyinj site is also a ceremonial ground for a ceremony called Yabbaduruwa, a major ceremony owned by the Yirridja patrimoiety. The Yabbaduruwa ceremony is primarily concerned with initiation, land ownership and promoting the cyclical regeneration of the human and natural worlds.

Categories: Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation

Name: Janet Marawarr

Language: Kune, Kuninjku

Community: Maningrida

Biography:

Janet Marawarr is a senior Kuninjku artist at Babbarra Designs working with lino printing and she is renowned for her screen print designs.  Marawarr regards textile design as an opportunity to work with colour and new methods to express her djang (ancestral creation stories). In 2019 she travelled to Paris to launch the touring exhibition, Jarracharra ( Dry Season Wind) of which her work featured.

As well as her textile designs with Bábbarra Women’s Centre, Marawarr is an established bark painter with Maningrida Arts & Crafts and she works for the Maningrida Night Patrol, a community safety service.

‘I like lino, print my design and doing different way to print my lino, different colours and different way. I print lino Yawkyawk (spirit woman) and Ngaldjorlhbo (mother of Everything). This was an old lady and she create that language and the world before. I also print also Rolk (maggot), my mother design cause I’m the Djunkay (land manager) for her.’  Janet Marawarr 2020

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© the artist / art centre