An art movement that is striking, political and enduring: this is what contemporary artists in Maningrida and the surrounding homelands have built, powered by their ancestral connections to Country and djang*

Maningrida Arts & Culture supports hundreds of artists from 12 language groups, 32 Outstations and 110 clans. Conceptually merging the natural and spiritual worlds, the secular and sacred, and embodying ancestral presence, some artworks express or focus on the power of country itself, others the ancestral activities that created it or inhabit it: the powerful Rainbow Serpent Ngalyod, female water spirits including Yawkyawk and jin-Merdewa, and spirit beings such as mimih, Namorrorddo and Wangarra.

Artists have control over all stages of the production of their work and use materials derived from and sustainably harvested on their clan estates: ochres and pigments that are powerful ancestral substances in themselves, the bark, wood and roots of trees, palm leaves and vines, feathers, and wax from bush honey.

*Djang is an ongoing, eternal, life-giving transformative power that accounts for every aspect of existence. It also refers to the creation ancestor, the country where spirit resides, and to ceremonial designs and songs that represent that being.