Murrumbidgee Marramarra

 

Murrumbidgee Marramarra is a partnership project between Western Riverina Arts and the Griffith Regional Art Gallery with support from Local Aboriginal Lands Councils and the Aboriginal Medical Centre. 

“Marramarra” is a Wiradjuri word meaning ‘to make, to do’ and this is exactly what local Aboriginal artists from our region did, in order to showcase their artworks at the exhibition Murrumbidgee Marramara, which was shown at the Griffith Regional Art Gallery as well as in the new Narrandera Arts and Community Centre.  

Murrumbidgee Marramarra was a a real drawcard exhibition and a huge success in the communities. There was an interesting variety of work on display, from traditional styles to more contemporary , that showed a great diversity of talent.

The aim of this project was to provide an opportunity to celebrate the creativity and cultural engagement of Indigenous artists in the region, to showcase the best artworks made by those artists, and to also facilitate Aboriginal community groups further engaging in the arts. 

The project was developed in 2014 as a partnership between Western Riverina Arts and the Griffith Regional Art Gallery, with both organisations having a key priority of promoting the work of local Indigenous artists. 

There are many talented Aboriginal artists in our region, and we want to assist with helping them gain the recognition their work deserves, both locally and outside the region. Leading local Aboriginal artists that exhibited in Murrumbidgee Marramarra were Michael Lyons, Ros Lockhart, William Ingram, Rodney Simpson, Allan McKenzie, Sarah Weymouth, Wayne Krause,Corey McKenzie and Veronica Collins. 

In light of our recent work Western Riverina Arts has been awarded $15,000 from the Aboriginal Regional Arts Fund, Arts NSW. This funding will be used for skills development workshops across the region. 

In 2016/2017 WRA will employ Aboriginal artists to run a series of workshops across all of our local government areas - Griffith, Leeton, Narrandera & Murrumbidgee.

The 16 workshop days will offer a wide variety of art styles including painting, woodcarving and weaving. Aboriginal artists will run two-day workshops in each area for young aboriginal artists, helping them to acquire new skills and create some original artwork, which can be seen in the second iteration of the Murrumbidgee Marramarra exhibition 2017. 

In partnership with the Griffith Regional Art Gallery we have plans to make this exhibition an annual process.