For the past 30 years, the Bábbarra Women’s Centre in Arnhem Land has been a place where Indigenous women from across the remote region converge, work and thrive.
In 1989, a group of Bábbarra artists grasped an unlikely enterprising opportunity, procuring a post-war screen printing press and setting about creating their own label. Today, Bábbarra Designs specialises in producing fabric that tells the ancestral stories of each artist’s local country and culture.
Decades of quiet success followed, and the female designers often became the breadwinners of their families - bucking the Indigenous unemployment trend continuing to grip remote Australia today.
Despite momentum building with a growing number of Australian business partnerships, nobody could have predicted that by late 2019, Bábbarra would be crowdfunding its way to Paris for its own exhibition during Fashion Week, a photoshoot with Vogue and meetings with major players in world art and fashion.