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Buku-Larrnggay Mulka
Buku-Larrnggay means
the feeling on your face as it is struck by the first rays of the sun
- indicating that we are in the most easterly place in the Top End of
Australia - Miwatj or the Sunrise country. Mulka is a sacred but public
ceremony. It also means to hold or protect. Thus we are the Northeast
Arnhem Land cultural centre and keeping place. Buku-Larrnggay
Mulka Art Centre has a long and proud history as one of Australia's
premier art centres and Indigenous culture strongholds. The artists
of the Centre have established a worldwide reputation for excellence,
having won many of Australia's major Indigenous art prizes.
The sacred art of this region
details the spiritual forces behind the creation and continuing identity
of the fresh and saltwater country of the Miwatj region of north-eastern
Arnhem land. Miwatj means 'morning side' and refers to the fact that
this is the most easterly part of the Top End.
Buku-Larrnggay Mulka
supplies individuals and high range retail outlets nationally and internationally
with small carvings, weavings, jewellery and bark paintings. It shows
solo and group exhibitions with prestigious private galleries worldwide.
The Centre is known worldwide as a premier source of the best and most
authentic yidaki (didjeridus). This web site
offers specific artworks, yidaki and limited edition prints
for sale.
The People
The Yolngu people are all capable of expressing their sacred identity through art and the artists who work through the Centre are men and women of all ages. The art and craft of Buku-Larrnggay Mulka is drawn from Yirrkala and the approximately 25 homeland centres within a radius of 200km
- the geographical area is known as the Miwatj region. Miwatj means 'morning side' and refers to the fact that it is the most eastern part of the Top End. The major clans of the Miwatj are; Gumatj, Rirratjingu, Djapu, Manggalili, Marrakulu, Madarrpa, Gälpu, Dhalwangu, Dätiwuy, Ngaymil, Djarrwark, Djambarrpuyngu, Wangurri, Warramiri, Dhudi-Djapu, Gupapuyngu and Munyuku.
History and Significance
 The
art of the Yirrkala region has been developing an appreciative audience
since the township was founded as a mission in 1935. Work from Yirrkala
was amongst the earliest commercial Aboriginal art marketed by Methodist
Overseas Mission. There is strong evidence to suggest that the art emerging
from Yirrkala in the mid 1950s was a catalyst in the non-Aboriginal
art world's realisation that Indigenous Australian art is a unique and
profound independent art tradition - the equal of any other global form.
Further, the artists of Yirrkala were amongst the first Indigenous Australians
to recognise the potential use of visual art as a political tool and
put this into practice with the now famous Yirrkala Church Panels (on
display in our museum) and Bark Petition (currently on display at Parliament
House in Canberra) dating from 1963.
When government policy shifted
and self-determination came to communities in Arnhem Land, the
artists saw the establishment of a community controlled art centre as
critically important to further their economic independence, cultural
security over sacred designs, and to maintain political and intellectual
sovereignty.
Culture and Environment
 Like the whole of Creation from the planet Venus to the larvae of the horned beetle (be it a species of plant, animal, fish, bird or any place or
person) all things belong to one of the two balancing halves of the world (moieties); Yirritja or Dhuwa. The sacred art of this region details the spiritual forces behind the ongoing Creation and continuing identity of the fresh and saltwater country of the Miwatj region - a very special part of Australia. The coastline and hinterland are largely unspoilt and still managed by the traditional owners, the Yolngu. The ecosystems of both the land and sea are pristine and provide abundant food subject to the season including yams, fruits, fish, kangaroo, wallaby, turtles and their eggs, dugong, emu, crayfish, oysters, mussels, tortoise, stingray, honey and more. These foods and the land that supports them are a seamless part of the wholistic Creation celebrated and maintained by almost continuous ceremonial activity. There is a constant interplay between the Law, the Land, the art of the Yolngu, their ceremony and lifestyle.
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The Art Centre & Museum
The Buku-Larrnggay
Mulka Art Centre and Museum is in Yirrkala, a small Aboriginal community
on the northeastern tip of the Top End of the Northern Territory, approximately
700km east of Darwin. Our primarily Yolngu (Aboriginal) staff of ten services Yirrkala and the approximately twenty-five homeland
centres in the radius of 200km (Map).
 Yirrkala Arts
was established formally in 1975 but art has been created here since
time immemorial and shared with non-Yolngu since their arrival. In the
1960s Narritjin Maymuru set up his own beachfront gallery
from which he sold art that now graces many major museums and private
collections. He is counted among the art centre's main inspirations and founders,
and his picture hangs in the museum. His vision of Yolngu-owned business to sell Yolngu art that started with a shelter on a beach has now grown into a thriving business that as of 2005 puts over a million dollars into the pockets of the community's artists every year.
The old 'hospital' or clinic
in which many of the
artists of today were born was converted to become the 'craft shop'
and over the years there have been a number of additions and renovations.
The current centre is an impressive building belying its humble beginnings.
The additions include: a Museum (1988); screen print
workshop and extra gallery spaces (1996); and the Yirrkala Church Panels
annexe (1998). A theatrette and multi-media centre is scheduled for
completion in 2007.
The Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Museum displays
a collection of works specifically created for it in the mid-1970s and early 80s by
elders which provides an outline of the kinship structure of the Yolngu
world. The jewels of the collection are the two four metre tall Yirrkala
Church Panels (1962-3) that have been described as amongst the most
important Australian art in existence.
Visiting
 The community is Aboriginal
land but no permit is required to visit us and the Community Store from
the nearby mining town of Nhulunbuy or the local Gove Airport (which
has daily flights on the Darwin-Cairns run by QANTAS as well as Air
North from Darwin and Groote Eylandt). Permission from the Northern
Land Council (08 8920 5100) is required to drive here from Darwin
or Katherine (approximately ten hours). The road is impassable in the
Wet Season (from Dec-May). Yirrkala is a dry area where alcohol is forbidden
without a permit. There are two hotels in the
vicinity, the
Walkabout Lodge and the
Gove Peninsula Motel, and several hire car firms. Camping is available
in designated areas administered by Dhimurru
Land Management (08 8987 3992).
The
art centre is open 8 am - 4.30 pm Monday - Friday and 9 am - noon on
Saturday. Entrance to the Museum is $2 for adults.
Saltwater Collection: Yirrkala Bark Paintings of Sea Country
 Yolngu culture is based on a strong sense of connection to land and sea. Yirrkala is ancestral land belonging to the Rirratjingu clan. Yolngu have traded and intermarried with Macassans since c.1100-1600 AD. In 1935 when the Federal Government was considering a 'punitive expedition' (massacre) against the Yolngu, Mawalan Marika invited the missionary Wilbur Chaseling to establish a mission at Yirrkala.
In the following years the leadership of the Yolngu resisted their dispossession by: government; missionaries; potential Japanese invasion; and Bauxite miners. In addition to the Yirrkala Church Panels and Yirrkala Bark Petition, they have used their art to assert their connection to land in; the Gove Land Rights Case; the Woodward Royal Commission; the Barunga Statement,; the Yirrkala Homeland Movement; the Land Rights Act (NT) 1976; the Both Ways education bilingual curriculum; and the world renowned contemporary music band Yothu Yindi. In recent years the Garma Festival and Wukidi Larrakitj Installations have used miny'tji to continue to rebut the myth of 'Terra Nullius' (that Australia was 'unoccupied country' before colonisation).
Under Yolngu Law the 'Land' extends to include sea. Both land and sea are connected in a single cycle of life for which the Yolngu hold the songs and designs. To demonstrate their rights and responsibilities over specific areas of both coast and sea and to protect those same marine environments from abuse by outsiders the landowners combined to make the Saltwater Collection of Yirrkala Bark Paintings of Sea Country in 1997. The Collection of 80 bark paintings made by 47 Yolngu artists is featured in a publication of the same name (see Appendix for details).
After a national tour (1998-2001) the Saltwater Collection is now held at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney and forms part of the Yolngu legal case for recognition of these rights.
Awards
- 1994 NATSIAA Dundiwuy Wanambi Best Bark
- 1995 NATSIAA Yananymul Mununggurr Best bark
- 1996 NATSIAA Djambawa Marawili Best Bark
- 1996 NATSIAA Naminapu Maymuru-White Best Work on Paper
- 1997 NATSIAA Yanggarriny Wunungmurra First Prize
- 1997 NATSIAA Djutjadjutja Mununggurr Best Bark
- 1998 NATSIAA Wukun Wanambi Best Bark
- 1998 NIHAA Naminapu Maymuru-White Runner up
- 2000 NIHAA Wolpa Wanambi First Prize
- 2002 NATSIAA Gawirrin Gumana First Prize
- 2003 NATSIAA Galuma Maymuru Best Bark
- 2004 NATSIAA Gulumbu Yunupingu First Prize
- 2005 NATSIAA Banduk Marika Best Bark
- 2005 NATSIAA Naminapu Maymuru-White Best 3D Work
- 2006 NATSIAA Baluka Maymuru Best 3d Work
- 2006 Vibe Magazine Deadliest Visual Artist of the Year Gulumbu Yunupingu
(NATSIAA- National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award NIHAA-National Indigenous Heritage Art Award)
Bibliography
- Buwayak-InvisibilityAnnandale galleries March 2003
- Buku Larrnggay Mulka Saltwater : Yirrkala bark paintings of sea country (Sydney : Jennifer Isaacs Publishing, 1999)
- Campbell MacKnight The Voyage to Marege' : Macassan Trepangers in Northern Australia (Carlton, Vic., Melbourne University Press, 1976)
- Charles Mountford Records of the American-Australian expedition to Arnhem Land, volume 1 Art, Myth and Symbolism (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1954)
- Howard Morphy Journey to the Crocodiles Nest (Canberra: Institute of Aboriginal Studies Press, 1984)
- Howard Morphy Ancestral Connections: Art and an Aboriginal System of Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)
- Morphy Howard Aboriginal Art (London: Phaidon, 1998)
- Wally Caruana and Nigel Lendon The painters of the Wawilag Sisters Story 1937-1997 (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1997)
- Gillian Hutcherson Djalkiri Wanga: The land is my Foundation: 50 years of Aboriginal art from Yirrkala, Northeast Arnhem Land (Nedlands, W.A. : The University of W.A. Berndt Museum of Anthropology, 1995)
- Gillian Hutcherson Gong-Wapitja, Women and Art from Yirrkala Aboriginal Studies Press 1998
- Judith Ryan Spirit in Land, Bark paintings from Arnhem Land, National Gallery of Victoria 1990
- Rirratjingu Ethnobotany:Aboriginal Plant use from Yirrkala, Arnhem Land, Australia Parks and Wildlife Commission NT 1995
- Helen Groger-Wurm Australian Aboriginal Bark Paintings and their Mythological Interpretations (Canberra; Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1973)
- Anne Wells This is their Dreaming (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1971)
- Yirrkala Film Project, Film Australia (23 titles 1981-95)
- Yothu Yindi discography 1988-2003
- Williams, Nancy "Australian Aboriginal Art at Yirrkala: Introduction and Development of Marketing" In Nelson Graburn (ed) Ethnic and Tourist Arts: Cultural expressions from the Fourth World p266-284 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976) ---
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