Get It On! Indigenous Textile & Fashion Exhibition
When Injalak Arts sent a call out for 'something wearable' created from three metres of their famous hand printed fabric, the response was resounding.
With fans of their Indigenous designed prints now based around the world, the sewing offers came from as far afield as Europe and Asia.
“People who have visited the arts centre are spreading the word about Injalak,” says Liz Martin, the gallery coordinator for Aboriginal Bush Traders, where the resulting collection of clothes will be exhibited this month in Darwin.
The Gunbalanya art centre has been producing its distinctive, richly detailed screen prints for decades and is one of a handful of Aboriginalowned textile designers whose fabrics have become something of a fashion statement in Darwin.
While it’s common for Darwin locals to get the hand printed fabric made into clothes while on holiday in nearby Bali or Southeast Asia, attention is turning to locally produced clothes.
“The brief was to make something wearable,” says Martin. “Some people have created a mini fashion collection. Entries have come from around Australia as well as the US, Italy and India.”
Professional and emerging designers, home sewers and students were invited to participate in the Get It On project, where they could show their design and sewing talents and promote the hand-crafted skills of ‘slow fashion’.
Twenty-five participants were then selected and posted three lengths of Injalak fabric to create their designs by the due date, to be included in the August exhibition.
If you have something you’ve sewn from Injalak or other art centre fabric, wear it to the exhibition’s launch event to be in the running for a best-dressed prize – slow fashion that quickens the pulse.
See the event listing.
