We are so excited to be partnering with the Indigenous arts centre Ikunjti Artists for a range of stagewear for Ensemble Q.
Ikuntji Artists is a member-based, not-for-profit, Aboriginal art centre. It is situated in the community of Haasts Bluff and has a board of five Indigenous directors who live and work locally.
Ikuntji Artists was first established in 1992 under the influence of the then community president, the late Esther Jugadai. The art centre was initially set up as a women’s centre providing catering for old people and children. After beginning in T-shirt prints, the artists began producing acrylic paintings on linen and hand-made paper, quickly gaining the attention of the art world. The focus changed from a women’s centre to an art centre in 2005.
Drawing their inspiration from their personal country and dreaming, the artists today work in painting, printmaking, textiles, jewellery, and photography. The Ikuntji Artists art centre is the cultural hub of the community, maintaining, reinforcing and reinvigorating cultural practices through art-making.
Over the last 4 years Ikuntji Artists has been experimenting with textiles designs, reimagining the established Dreaming stories into fabric designs. These fabrics have been rapidly growing and receiving national and international recognition. Working closely with designers and makers from around Australia, Ikuntji Artists has been combining these fabrics with hand-made one-off high-end fashion garments. The growing success of these fabrics and garments can be seen through the recognition by the National Indigenous Fashion Awards, First Nations Fashion and Design, London Pacific Fashion Week and numerous celebrity endorsements. The national and international success of these textiles and garments is most recently celebrated with our acceptance into the New York Fashion Week 2023.

We are incredibly grateful to one of our most generous sponsors, Di Haskell, for funding the majority of the purchase of our handpicked selection of beautiful hand printed silks. 

Our own Trish Dean is a dressmaker when she's not playing the cello or running Ensemble Q (yes, she is one of the lucky few to have been blessed with 48 hours in every day, haha). Not afraid of a challenge, Trish is currently in the process of making two outfits each for all the women in Ensemble Q, along with some ties, pocket squares and maybe a waistcoat for the gents. The first batch were premiered at Septet, here are the photos! 

We had a fantastic time in our first concert as Company in Residence at QPAC on Sunday 11th September. Our new outfits made with Ikunjti Artists fabric were a hit, as was the Beethoven and Paul Dean's new Septet. Read the full Limelight review here