Printing Kururrk Kare

We created this short film to show everybody the work that goes into every single screen printed fabric from Bábbarra Designs.

This video only shows one colour being printed, but this is a three colour print screen design. This means the printers and ink dryers (four women in total) must do the process shown in this video three times in total! This can take quite a few hours, after which the fabric is ready for cutting, heating (in our industrial heater for 1.5 hours), measuring and checking for imperfections, labelling then selling.

The women chose the featured song 'Man-djarduk' (red bush apple) for the video, as it tells the story of collecting Indigenous bush foods and is a song from this country. It also relates to the bush foods design being printed- Jennifer Wurrkidj's "Kururrk Kare".

The song is part of the Wurrurrumi song cycle, performed by Kuninjku songman Kevin Djimarr. Thank you Kevin for allowing your family to use this incredible song for our short film.