Bula’Bula Arts is an Aboriginal fine arts organisation based in Ramingining, in the Northern Territory, Australia. Its aim is to provide the Yolngu community of Ramingining and surrounding homelands a voice, while supporting the artists through assistance, training and encouragement and providing an outlet for their work’s displays.
Billy Durbuma Black – “Baru Dhawu (Crocodile Story)”, 2015 – Acrylic on canvas © The Artists – Photo courtesy Bula’Bula Arts
Ramingining has had an art centre since the late 1970s and Bula’Bula Arts Aboriginal Corporation was established in 1990. The art centre services Ramingining’s township and the surrounding outstations and homelands. The artists of Ramingining, such as Billy Durbuma Black or Robyn Djunginy, have had their work displayed far and wide. They have, for instance, chosen to participate in the 1988 Aboriginal Memorial, an installation consisting of over 200 Dupun, or hollow-log coffins, dedicated to the Indigenous Australians killed since the coming of the Europeans.
Billy Durbuma Black, work in progress, Photo courtesy of Bula’Bula Arts
They have participated in many exhibitions, such as the 2013 String Theory: Focus on Contemporary Art at the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, New South Wales, and the 1988 Biennale of Sydney where the Aboriginal Memorial was showcased. They have works in many private and public collections, in Australia, the USA and Japan, such as the Kluge-Ruhe collection of the University of Virginia in America.
Daniel Warrulukuma – “Kangaroo, Wallaby and 3 Ibises”, 2016 – Acrylic on canvas – Photo courtesy of Bula’Bula Arts