Kip&Co X Bábbarra Textile Homewares Collaboration.

One of Australia’s most remote textile-producing Indigenous arts collectives, Bábbarra Women’s Centre in Maningrida, Arnhem Land, has teamed up with Kip&Co on a contemporary textile & homewares collection.

Originally established as a women’s refuge, Bábbarra is governed by women for women as advocates for better learning and economic opportunities for Indigenous females and their families. The artists at the centre design and hand-print textiles that are sold in Australia and internationally. Each length of fabric is unique and tells the ancestral stories of Arnhem Land country and cultures.

According to Jessica Phillips, the first local Indigenous manager of Bábbarra Women’s Centre, art and design are one of the key ways remote Aboriginal communities engage with the mainstream economy. “We know that when women are financially empowered, the flow-on effects for children and families are significant,” she says.

Kip&Co co-founder Alex McCabe says – “Being part of a female-led collaboration has been incredibly rewarding. We travelled up to the Northern Territory with our children last summer to spend time in the community. It was a chance to meet these amazing artists in person, and to deepen our understanding of the stories behind the artwork. We were moved by the history of the arts centre, founded as a safe haven for women, and by the spirit of the artists – their creativity and determination. We believe this spirit has been captured in this beautifully designed range.”

To ensure the intellectual rights of the female-led collaboration were protected, Australia’s national copyright licensing organisation was engaged to establish a framework designed to protect the integrity of the designs and their artists. All profits from the collaboration will be shared equally between Kip&Co and Bábbarra.

[Images courtesy of Kip&Co.]