Mangkaja artists have been producing collaborative canvases since their first show at Tandanya in Adelaide in 1991. There they worked on two banners to advertise their exhibition and this has become habitual, with the exhibiting artists often working together in galleries over the opening days of their exhibitions.

NGURRARA CANVASES
There have been a number of works produced for specific purposes, the most notable being the two Ngurrara canvases that were produced in preparation for the Ngurrara Native Title claim hearings. Both works were made at Pirnini, an area to the south west of Fitzroy Crossing, on the northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert.The first attempt, which was produced in 1996 and measured five by eight metres, though a magnificent piece of art, was deemed unsatisfactory by the artist claimants. Because they had worked independently on different parts of the canvas, they had different notions of scale and relative position, so that the mosaic of places did not fit together in the way they should. However, the experience was a valuable one. People realized they would need a larger canvas, and they also gained a clearer idea of how the elements of the work should be placed on it. The second canvas measured eight metres by ten metres and this one was painted in 1997.
The Ngurrara Canvas is a collective work by over sixty artists from the southern Kimberley region. Jila, Painted Waters of the Great Sandy Desert, video now available from Mangkaja Arts

MARTUWARRA AND JILA
In 2000, the Mangkaja artists painted a large collaborative canvas that shows martuwarra, the river country of its Bunuba and Gooniyandi painters, and the desert country (jila — desert waterholes) of its Walmajarri and Wangkajunga painters. Following their initial migration during the first half of last century, from their desert lands to the station country in the north, the desert people moved again in the late 1960s. The introduction of equal pay laws brought about movement away from pastoral stations and into town.

Fitzroy Crossing is located on Bunuba and Gooniyandi country. Janet Williams recalls that her father and several other Bunuba elders were asked by Walmajarri and Wangkajunga people if they could cross the river, onto their land. She says that her father welcomed them however the longing for desert lands that the old people felt is clearly expressed by a Walmajarri man, Pompey Siddon as he stated, only months before he died in 1994:

In Fitzroy Crossing we’re sitting down now in this little murnturu (island). This is Bunuba country. They are the bosses for this country, for this land. We came in from Cherrabun Station. Before that I was in the bush.
I like making these paintings because this is my country, this is my own country. We don’t go past boundaries. We are in Bunuba country. We don’t want to stop their law. We can’t do our ceremony here, it will change the law. It is deep in the ground.

With such a strong demarcation between the river and desert, it is not surprising that these artists have not worked together in the past. The cohesion amongst the individuals of what is potentially a disparate group is played out in the strength of the Martuwarra and Jila painting— in the juxtaposition of image, colour and form. This canvas reveals a significant collaboration and Daisy Andrews acknowledges this when commenting about the work:

It’s really good now how we can all sit down and work together, it’s really good, river and desert together, whole lot.

POTTERY CERAMICS
Maureen Spencer, a professional potter, and Lurgo Green, technician at Mangkaja Arts. At the first workshops, participating artists made hand-built pieces, some of which were sold through Mangkaja Arts Centre.
The following year, once the wet season had abated and the roads were passable, a number of three-day ceramic tile workshops were held in remote and town based communities. These included Pullout Springs, Yakanarra, Wangkajungka, Moongardie, Junjuwa, Bayulu and Kadjina. Completed tiles were transported back to Fitzroy Crossing at the end of each trip, to be fired at the local high school.

Word spread about the workshops and communities were asking for Maureen and Lurgo to make return visits. The project gathered momentum with two major outcomes. The first was a group exhibition titled ‘Story Boards’ at the Fremantle Art Centre, to coincide with the Ninth Annual National Ceramics Conference.

The Story Boards project was designed to introduce a broad range of people to clay. Artists from the four main language group serviced by the centre, Bunuba, Gooniyandi, Walmajarri and Wangkajunga have all been involved in producing tiles for the show. Tiles were selected as a most immediate and portable way in which to work and the latter feature was essential as Mangkaja services a number of communities which are sparsely spread throughout the Fitzroy Valley. To access these places, bags of clay have been piled into the Mangkaja vehicle or the local charter plane with visits to around ten communities over several months. The average time spent in each place has been three days.

The tiles have been hand rolled. In most cases they are loosely square although some are freely formed oval shapes. The markings range from carefully sculpted relief carving to fresh, simple drawings made with satay sticks and lino carving tools. They are finished with a terrasigilata developed from pindan, the characteristic red soil of the Kimberley region. They are once fired in an oxidation atmosphere.

The second stage of the project was the placement of over seven hundred tiles on the terraced step adjoining the supermarket carpark. It is a very popular meeting place and the tiles are an interesting feature for both locals and travellers.

PRINTMAKING

1994 when Gill Weaver from the Teenage Roadshow, visited Mangkaja Arts. He asked for suggestions for a place where Melbourne printmaker, Martin King, could run some workshops as part of the Roadshow program. Having recently renovated the Old Mangkaja workspace the timing was perfect. Martin arrived mid year after a three week workshop in Kalumburu and set up in Fitzroy Crossing for ten days of etching and lino printing.

The artists produced a wide variety of images in the first workshop and a strong working relationship developed with Martin King and the Australian Print Workshop in Melbourne. After subsequent workshops in Melbourne and Fitzroy Crossing a number of artists have continued to produce prints, most notably Ngarralja Tommy May, Butcher Cherel, Mervyn Street, John Nargoodah and Peter Skipper.

It is hoped that the print project will be self supporting with the proceeds from the sales of the prints going back into the printing of new editions. Limited edition prints of around fifteen to twenty enable the production of work by a greater number of artists.

More recently, in 2003, four Mangkaja artists Ngarralja Tommy May, Dorothy May, Nyuju Stumpy Brown and Hitler Pamba took part in the Garma collaborative panel workshop, an etching project conducted by Basil Hall Editions at the Garma Festival. Eighty artists contributed individual etching plates to make up the collaborative panel.

Prints currently available from Mangkaja are featured in the ‘on-line-gallery’