The Australian National Library located in Australia’s capital; Canberra needed its learning, collaborating and reading spaces to incorporate pieces of Australian history that are particularly important while maintaining an overall aesthetic and without sacrificing comfort.
Winya arranged for a number of our bespoke Indigenous art piece ottomans and boomerang lounges to be scattered throughout the library to satisfy this need. Our ottomans are comfortable, practical and completely unique. Winya utilises the work of Indigenous artists who have been paid royalties to put on our furniture creating comfortable and beautiful pieces. The uniformity of the black tops of all the ottomans and boomerang lounges ensures that the overall libraries aesthetic is maintained despite the pieces depicting different artists work and showcasing different Dreamtime stories. The combination of several stories scattered on the ottomans makes the space look less robotic and structured and rather brings life and colour to the room boosting the mood of library users.
While the ottomans allow for singular use and personal projects and reading, the boomerang lounges double as a space for collaborative work and talk as well as allowing ample space for several people to work on individual projects on the same lounge.
The Indigenous art on the accent pieces depict different stories from different regions including; the Yam and Bush tomato dreaming, in the Dreamtime people used to eat these fruits and vegetables, just as the old people lived off them. The place associated with this Dreaming is west of Yuendumu (NT), and the story of Damien’s families travels in Mt. Liebig, west of Papunya (NT). Damien’s great grandfather and his family are travelling through the desert towards Kintore, collecting food. In the bottom right hand corner, the sun is setting over a hillside. The family stops to camp at different places along the way. The red concentric circles are dry rock holes, and the blue and white concentric circles represent rock holes that are filled with clean water, that flows on into the creek. The red stripes coming out of the centre of the right-hand side of the painting lead to one of these waterholes – these are the tracks of the family walking through the sand. In this painting you can also see spinifex bushes (the yellow star-like symbols), and dry claypans with cracks in the earth.
Despite displaying different Dreamtime stories from different areas the pieces work in unity to create a vibrant and practical room.