Arnhem Land by Hand

Mixing Indigenous art with Melbourne design, furniture company Manapan is bridging the gap between ancient and modern Australia.

Virgin Australia Voyeur, April 2018

Milingimbi Island is about as remote as you can get in our wide, brown land — in fact, you’ve probably never heard of it. It’s one of  the Crocodile Islands off the coast of Arnhem Land, about  440 kilometres east of Darwin. It’s been home to Yolngu people for at least 50,000 years but Milingimbi is now attracting global attention for a creative business, Manapan Furniture, that was established there just three years ago.

Manapan produces expertly crafted contemporary furniture in a small but growing enterprise, owned and operated by the Yolngu community. It was the brainchild of businessman Mark White, founding director of the Melbourne-based shopfitting company, Ramvek.

White says he had reached a point in his working life where he felt he had  “done OK” and wanted to  give something back.

“So I looked around the world for opportunities where I might be able to help, but it turns out I didn’t have to  look overseas,” he says.

“We have incredibly talented [Indigenous] people who have extraordinary skills and traditions, who just want a little help bringing  their incredible products to a national and global market.”

The Yolngu people have been carving wood, painting, and weaving palms into textiles for both daily  and ceremonial use for centuries. Milingimbi Island has a thriving arts centre and gallery that produces and displays paintings, limited-edition prints, carvings and didgeridoos by Aboriginal artists, and art from the island is included in several significant national and international collections.

Manapan — which  means “coming together” in the local language — is an inspiring collaboration between Milingimbi’s Indigenous cabinet makers, master craftsman Rob Crisfield, six designers  and White, with additional input and support from the Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation.

Elder Keith Lapulung, Manapan’s chairman, is passionate about how the company is building bridges between ancient Yolngu culture and mainstream Australia. “It is life-giving,” he says. “We are creating an entity that gives us all a sense of oneness through working with our artistic heritage and modern technology. Manapan is connecting cultures.”

Five Yolngu men work in the purpose-built workshop producing the furniture, which is designed to express the stories of both the creators and the makers, while another 10 are learning the trade in the “men’s shed” next door. Work experience schemes with the local school are also giving young people  some hands-on involvement with the company.

White emphasises that Manapan is not about creating a workforce. “It’s deeper than that,” he says. “Manapan exists to help people find their purpose, and to live their lives in the service of that purpose.

“It’s really important to our team that the items they are helping to create reflect their culture and traditions,” he continues. “And it’s important to them that their community profits directly from their work.

“They see Manapan as a way to engage with the world without having to abandon who they are or where they come from. In that sense, Manapan exists to provide  the best of both worlds.”

The world of Milingimbi Island is small — at high tide two-thirds of its 70 square kilometres is below sea level, and for its population of “about 1200” English is generally a second language. (Population figures can fluctuate in Aboriginal communities, due to factors including seasonal changes  — wet and dry seasons —  and ceremonial activity.)

There is an airport on the island with two flights daily to and from Darwin, but when you’re in the furniture business, shipments of raw materials and finished products to and from Australia are by sea. The timber — mostly Darwin stringybark — is sourced from the Gumatj clan in Nhulunbuy (some 250 kilometres away on the Gove Peninsula) and the art incorporated in some of the pieces comes from Milingimbi, Ramingining  and Central Australia.

“Ultimately Manapan is all about creating opportunities within the Indigenous communities,” White says. “We don’t want to see people having to move out of their communities to work. We have to be based where people can remain surrounded by their culture and their people. If that means we have to wait a day for a new blade to arrive from Darwin, so be it.”

Crisfield has been on board since the company was established. He manages the factory and is in charge of the training programs. The design team is made up of six renowned Melbourne-based architects and designers: Jon Mikulic, director of Newline Design and founder of By Lineal; interior designers Chloe Walbran and Liz Doube from Newline Design; furniture and lighting designer Suzie Stanford; architect and interior designer Ashleigh Parker; and furniture designer Alexsandra Pontonio.

To date, they have worked remotely on the designs, communicating constantly with the Indigenous artists by Skype, phone and email. White says that in future members of the design team will spend more time “on country”, to further streamline the process. Meanwhile, Manapan is launching a range of hand-crafted homewares — bowls, platters, chopping boards and cheese boards — and the furniture workshop is scaling up. How big it becomes depends on demand and the size of the population,  but White says the beauty  of the Manapan model is it’s ready to be replicated in other Indigenous communities around the country.

“There is no shortage of Indigenous communities  who just want a little help turning their skills and culture into the kinds of products  that are highly sought after  all over the world,” he says.

Manapan has opened a showroom in Melbourne’s South Yarra, pieces can be ordered online and one-off designs can be individually commissioned. White says that the market is pretty broad.

“The large furniture pieces are often bought by collectors as well as people who are looking for that one piece of furniture for their home that has a ‘wow’ factor,” he says.

“We’re also looking to  the corporate world and to Canberra to engage with Manapan. If you need a new boardroom table for your global company, why not engage with an indigenous Australian community?

“Think about the millions of dollars of furniture that taxpayers buy for Australian embassies around the world,” White continues. “Having a Manapan piece in each embassy would help showcase Australia’s Indigenous heritage. In my experience, Indigenous communities would rather our federal politicians gave them an order for some furniture, rather than a handout.”

For more information, visit www.manapanfurniture.com.au