Lennie Goya-Airra
Kune artist Lennie Goya-Airra is an integral member of the Babbarra textile clothing team. The development of Bábbarra’s clothing and homewares product lines owes significantly to her work, having been taught to sew by her grandmother. Lennie is from the Buluhkaduru homeland, one-hour south-west of Maningrida, where she managed the Buluhkaduru outstation Women’s Centre for many years and supervised women sewing and printing.
In a video, Lennie spoke of her art making process. She says, “I started working at Buluhkaduru, my homeland. At Bábbarra Women’s Centre I’m always making bags, cushion covers, table cloths and skirts too. I get the material and the pattern, I put the paper down and pin it up and cut it out with scissors and make the skirt. I make lots of tops for ladies when they model the skirts and tops. We had one here and we had one at Adelaide and one in Darwin.” Video, 2017: Centre for Australian Languages and Linguistics in association with Bábbarra Women’s Centre and The Batchelor Institute.