PrintShopNT: Laundry Gallery founder Nina Fitzgerald opens print-screening hub at Winnellie

The Darwin creative behind uber-cool Parap arts hub Laundry Gallery has opened the doors to the country’s first 100 per cent Aboriginal-owned centralised screen printing and licensed textile manufacturing hub.

Darwin creative Nina Fitzgerald (of Laundry Gallery fame) has, with PrintShopNT, located at Winnellie, achieved an Australian first. Picture: Supplied

The Darwin creative behind uber-cool Parap arts hub Laundry Gallery has opened the doors to the country’s first 100 per cent Aboriginal-owned centralised screen printing and licensed textile manufacturing hub.

PrintShopNT, located at Winnellie, is the brainchild of Nina Fitzgerald, who, aside from her work with Laundry Gallery, is also the creative director of Going North Agency (alongside Shaun Edwards, founder of House of Darwin).

The new hub will be a multi-user facility with two core operational pillars: a commercial manufacturing facility consolidating the printing activity of Aboriginal artists, arts organisations and business’ across the Northern Territory and Australia more broadly; and as a community-focused art space that services and supports all art centres that use screen-printing as a medium (this pillar is registered as a not-for-profit social enterprise).

Darwin creative Nina Fitzgerald (of Laundry Gallery fame) has, with PrintShopNT, located at Winnellie, achieved an Australian first. Picture: Supplied

Among its capabilities, PrintShopNT is equipped with a carousel for screen-printing on things like T-shirts and tote bags; an infra-red conveyor oven for drying textiles; an in-house screen exposure service; a 14.5m screen-printing table for printing by metreage.

“The NT is under-resourced and disconnected from the broader fashion supply chain – so I am bringing the chain to us,” Fitzgerald said in a social media post last month announcing the project.

Speaking to this masthead, Fitzgerald elaborated further, voicing her belief that the times would suit her.

Nina Fitzgerald at Parap’s Laundry Gallery, which she founded and co-owns. Picture: Floss Adams.

“There is a huge push across all of Australia for locally manufactured and made,” she said.

The benefits of having such a facility in Darwin would be felt especially by the Territory’s remote Aboriginal artists – predominantly female – who work with the medium.

“PrintShopNT will consolidate printing activities from across the NT,” Fitzgerald said.

“For remote-based artists, they will have access to far more efficient and cost-effective services.

“Currently, a whole bunch of stuff is printed on-site in communities, which is awesome, but then other parts of the work have to go to Sydney, predominantly.

“Remote artists come in and out of Darwin for various reasons anyway – now, they can come in and work with us.

“It brings so much agency back to artists and their stories, rather than taking it far away.”

One of PrintShopNTs most significant early commissions involves “re-digitising and remaking archival screens” produced in previous decades by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists.

“It’s really cool that families can reconnect with these stories and reproduce artworks from their ancestors,” Fitzgerald said.

PrintShopNT is equipped with a T-shirt carousel, 14.5m screen-printing table, infra-red conveyor oven, and other tools. Picture: Supplied

As PrintShopNT gathers steam, Fitzgerald said she had two priorities: funnelling more young people toward the space, and empanel an advisory body of Australian fashion heavyweights to ensure the business remains at the forefront of sartorial innovation.

And could we one day see her Going North colleague, Mr Edwards, begin printing his iconic House of Darwin T-shirts and other apparel at PrintShopNT?

“It would be an incredible thing having House of Darwin printed in Darwin, so I’m sure it’s something we’ll look at down the track,” she said.