Banduk Marika

Banduk Mamburra Wananamba Marika

Marika was educated at the mission at Yirrkala until the age of 15.[9]

Marika was among a small group to be taught and supported by male relatives (including her father

Artist Ruby Alderton is her daughter.^[11]

Artistic career

She moved first to Darwin in 1972^[1] (or 1974?^[8]), where she served as Secretary on the Northern Land Council^[5] until 1980. During this time she also worked as an Aboriginal field officer, youth worker at the YWCA, and became mother to four children.^[8]

She then moved to

Djanda and the Sacred Waterhole (1988), a work commissioned by the Australian National University to commemorate the Australian Bicentenary, was created using linocut on paper, using six colours. It represented a story of great significance to the Rirratjingu clan, involving part of the complex storyline of the Djang'kawu at Yalangbara. She had special rights to use this story by virtue of her land ownership and position in the clan. The National Gallery of Australia bought one of the prints made by her, while another was purchased for reproduction in a book called Aboriginality.^[12]

She was also artist-in-residence at the

The Yalangbara: art of the Djang'kawu touring exhibition, instigated by Marika and developed with the assistance of other family members and MAGNT, opened at the National Museum of Australia from 7 December 2010. This was the first major survey exhibition of the Marika family's work, and covers around 50 named sites in the Yalangbara peninsula that were traversed by the Djang'kawu journey.^[13]

In 2017 she and Tiwi Islander Bede Tungutalum were chosen to design a set of four postage stamps with the theme "Art of the North" for Australia Post.^[14]

Exhibitions and collections

Her work has been shown in America, India, Egypt,

She worked as a translator with Film Australia and on the TV series Women of the Sun.^[5][8][21]

She appeared in several films:^[5][8][21]

• Banduk (1985), directed by Di Drew;^[22]
• Cactus (1986), directed by Paul Cox and starring Isabelle Huppert;^{[23][24][25][26][27]} and
• Copyrites (1997), a documentary film about Aboriginal copyright (see also below).^[28][29]

She also appeared in Bride for all Seasons! (?) and the docudrama television series Flight into Hell (1985). She features in the ABC Television documentary film, Dream Time, Machine Time^[21] (1987^[30])^[8] along with poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, painter Trevor Nickolls and writer Archie Weller.^[31][32]

Indigenous intellectual property

Banduk said in 1997:^[33]

...my brother and I were known to the family as the outcasts because we moved outside of our boundary and went out to an unknown territory that was known as the balanda world, white man's world. And he (Wandjuk) initiated the whole debate about copyright that is still being fought twenty years on.

1993–4 Copyright case

In 1993, it was found that Marika's print Djanda and the Sacred Waterhole (1988) had been reproduced without permission on rugs made in

A documentary film called Copyrites (1997),[28]^[29] examining copyright of Indigenous peoples' creations, featured Marika^[9] and fellow Arnhem land artist Gawirrin Gumana.^[28]

Other work on intellectual property

Marika appeared as a witness in 2019 case against Birubi Art for concealing the fact that their "Aboriginal" artefacts for sale were made in Indonesia, and not by Aboriginal artists. The Federal Court ruled against the company.^[38]

Land and language

In 1999 Marika started working towards attaining

She was a board member of the Indigenous Art Code, a group of artists, curators, and arts and legal organisations working to outlaw fake Indigenous art.[5]

Later life and death

In 2020, she said in a television interview:^[41]

Arts and country and environment are all one... And why are these three elements so important to protect today? It's an identification. It's you knowing who you are, where you've come from, where your ancestors are from. Without those ID, you are nobody. You don't exist.

Marika died on 12 July 2021, aged 66.^[10]

After her death, per Yolngu tradition, she is no longer referred to by her full name, but called Dr B Marika.^[42][11]

Honours and recognition

A colour photographic portrait of Marika taken by Anne Zahalka in 1990 is held by the National Portrait Gallery of Australia.^[43]

At the 2001

In 2005, she won the bark painting prize at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards for the painting Yalangbara. She was assisted in painting the work by Boliny and Ralwurrandji Wanambi.^[45]

Her book, Yalangbara: Art of the Djang'kawu, was joint winner of the 2009 Chief Minister's Northern Territory Book History Awards.^[46]

In April 2018 Marika received an

Also in 2020, she was honoured as Senior Territorian of the Year.^{[10][9][15][41]}

Works

• The book Gong-wapitja : Women and art from Yirrkala, northeast Arnhem Land (1998) includes "Story from Banduk".^[50][15]
• West, Margie K. C., ed. (2008), Yalangbara: art of the Djang'kawu, Charles Darwin University Press,
  ISBN 978-0-9803846-7-3

• People with the surname Marika

References