The Australian Women's Register

Marmburra Wananumba Banduk Marika, of the Rirratjingu clan of the Yolngu people, was born in 1954 at Yirrkala in the Northern Territory. She received a traditional education as well as attending the Yirrkala mission school. In 1973 she moved to Darwin and the following year became secretary for the Northern Land Council. In 1980 she moved to Sydney, where she began her career as an artist.

Marika has had a number of solo exhibitions of her prints and has been an artist-in-residence at the Sydney School of Art, East Sydney Technical College, Flinders University, the Canberra School of Art and Warrnambool TAFE. She has also worked with Film Australia as a translator on the film Women of the Sun and has appeared in three others: Bride for All Seasons!, Flight into Hell and Cactus. She directed Banduk, which won the major International Children’s Film award, and was involved in the making of a documentary, Dream-Time, Machine-Time, for ABC television.

In 1988 Marika returned to Yirrkala, and became manager of Buku-Larrngay Arts and Crafts. In 1992 she was elected vice-chairperson of Dhimurru Land and Sea Management, the Aboriginal board of management for northeast Arnhem Land. She was also chairperson of the Aboriginal Visual Arts Committee of the Australia Council for the Arts. She has been a member of a number of bodies, including the Australian National Gallery, the Yirrkala-Dhanbul Community Council and the Mawalan Gamarrwa Nuwul Association.