Our Stories
Our Australian Made Co-design with Kieren Karritpul
Country Road would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which this story was created and produced, the Malak Malak, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wurundjeri and Bunurong Peoples. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present, and acknowledge their ongoing custodianship of Country.
Kieren Karritpul has been creating art since he was 15 years old, sharing stories from the traditional lands where he lives in Nauiyu, Daly River. Growing up, Kieren would watch the women in his community weave baskets and fishing nets, greatly influencing his practice today.
We first met Kieren in 2020, following his Textile Design Award win at the National Indigenous Fashion Awards. Since then, we’ve worked together through a considered process of co-design to create a limited Home range, with Kieren’s designs deeply woven into the material, shape and function of every piece.
Join us to discover how our co-design came to be.
We live in the land. We are part of this land and it is part of us. We are woven together as one.—Kieren Karritpul
A Ngen’giwumirri man, Kieren comes from a long line of master weavers and artists. His work embraces lines and circular forms to represent life on the land, in mediums such as paintings, fabrics and ceramics.
“I didn’t choose to be an artist because I was already born to be an artist from my grandmother, great-grandmother and mother. I’m the fourth generation of that artist.” —Kieren Karritpul
Our relationship with Kieren grew over a number of years. During that time, Kieren shared his stories of home with us, touching on the importance of the billabongs, mermaids and turtles of the Nauiyu community.
“In my culture where I come from, we are not allowed to draw the real face, eyes, nose and mouth of the mermaid or a human being. So we do this sort of pattern to not show the face.
When we go out to certain billabongs or creeks, we know the mermaids are present, we can feel them around. For the long-necked turtle, in our language, we call it Malarrgu. For the mermaid, we call them Falmikuri, meaning water lady.” —Kieren Karritpul
A TRUE CO-DESIGN
Kieren’s stories inspired the direction for our co-design, which was fostered in an environment of sharing, listening and understanding.
Together with Kieren, an 8-piece dining range was created, influenced by the organic forms in his artworks. The artist was involved at every step of the design process, which resulted in five ceramic bowls and three linen textiles. Each design was proudly crafted in Australia in collaboration with local makers.
When Kieren was explaining his artworks, the importance of the billabong in the Daly River region became really clear. That’s when we decided on a dining range because it was about life giving, sharing with family and community.—Ty Symonds, head of design for home, Country Road
This project is a beautiful example of a good practice co-design approach where the artist and their aspirations guide the project from end to end. Collaboration and partnership are about genuinely working together, making decisions together and building a respect for one another. This is a great example of how this can work well in a design context to achieve some amazing outcomes—an exciting initiative.—Yatu Widders Hunt, general manager, Cox Inall Ridgeway
MANY HANDS OF COLLABORATION
Dja Dja Wurrung Country, Bendigo
Australia’s oldest working pottery studio, Bendigo Pottery, was chosen to bring the ceramic pieces to life. The clay was sourced from central Victoria, and moulded, printed and fired in-house at the studio. With a rich history dating back to 1858, Bendigo Pottery takes great care in the craft of its products, and carefully reuses materials to reduce its waste.
“For just about everything we do, we are able to recycle any waste that we have. If we have rejected product at the clay stage, we can recycle it back into the clay. If it’s at the fired stage, it goes to a recycling company who crush it up and use it for road base. All of our waste materials, cardboard, plastics, and soft plastics are recycled. The water from the factory process is pumped to a dam and then pumped back into the factory to use as cooling water and to water the gardens so that we discharge very little.” —Rod Thomson, managing director, Bendigo Pottery
“It was important for us to partner with a local manufacturer as part of this project, connecting Kieren’s work as an Indigenous artist to Australian Made products. To think that these ceramic pieces are made using clay from down the road is pretty incredible.
There’s a really beautiful relationship between the organic design of the plates and the organic circles and shapes within Kieren’s artwork. The print decals are applied individually, meaning the placement will be slightly different on each one. I love that character and individuality. It takes the skilled artisanship of so many others to bring this type of product to life, at every step of the way.” —Ty Symonds, head of design for home, Country Road
HONOURING ARTISAN CRAFT
Naarm, Melbourne
Three textile designs were created to accompany the ceramic serving range. Kieren’s artworks were carefully translated into two linen tea towels and a table runner, which were hand-screen printed locally at Printink Studio.
Based in Collingwood, Victoria, Printink Studio has long championed the artisan skill of hand-screen printing, with every piece of cloth printed, touched and assembled by the same two pairs of hands.
The studio is run by Jason Cesani and Nadia Husiak, with a focus on using natural fibres. Throughout the dyeing process, Printink sources Australian-produced ink which is water-based and solvent-free.
“We relish the challenge and creative adventures involved in our highly manual process, which involves hand drawing and hand-screen printing our creations, all the while bouncing ideas for new collaborations and themes back and forth across our mammoth printing table, itself beautifully worn and layered with stories from years of service.” —Nadia Husiak, co-founder, Printink Studio
BRINGING THE CO-DESIGN TO LIFE
Naarm, Melbourne
Finally, the screen-printed fabrics are delivered to ABMT Apparel in Melbourne, where they are cut, sewn and trimmed into tea towels and table runners.
From first conversations to final production, every step of the process is collaborated on together. We’d like to thank Merrepen Arts, Arts Law, Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair Foundation and Cox Inall Ridgeway for supporting us through our process of co-design.
Kieren is a member of Merrepen Arts Culture and Language Art Centre.
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