About Us

Munupi Arts is a 100% Aboriginal-owned and governed art centre based at Pirlangimpi on Melville Island in the Tiwi Islands. Since its establishment in 1990, Munupi Arts has been a place where Tiwi culture, language, creativity and community come together. It is a living, working space where traditional knowledge and ancestral wisdom are carried across generations, while artists continue to find new and inventive ways to express their individual creativity.

Munupi artists continue the traditions of caring for, and maintaining connection to Country, Tiwi creation stories, language and cultural knowledge. Working with natural ochres, bark, canvas, carving, weaving, and ceramics, each artist has a distinctive visual language and creative practice. Their work speaks to the continuity of Tiwi culture while demonstrating the innovation, experimentation and inventiveness of contemporary First Nations art in Australia.

Income generated through Munupi Arts contributes directly to artists, their families and the wider Pirlangimpi community. In this way, art is not only a creative practice but a powerful source of cultural continuity, community wellbeing, economic independence and self-determination.

Munupi Arts is proud to be a signatory to the Indigenous Art Code and is supported through the Australian Government’s Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support program. The art centre is managed by Dashielle and Tandanya Allain.