The NIFA nominees spreading confidence, culture and changing things for the next generation
‘You can make a name for yourself and you can be someone,’ is the driving mantra behind the inspiring model, creator, mentor, mum and powerful force that is 24-year-old Tiesha Munnich.
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Family, community and Mob: These are the foundations woven into everything Darwin’s model, mentor and creator Tiesha Munnich does. Growing up with the phrase “you’ve got to use what you’ve got” – whether that was about using recycled materials for sewing and jewellery or encouraging her to be feel confident in being herself – is a lesson Tiesha has held on to tightly.
And it is also one she is striving to share as widely as possible. The model, creator and mum has set up her own community engagement called Bamalang MOB/One Mob Production to help mob explore modelling and creative opportunities.
Often running community sewing classes alongside her Nana, Hermy Munnich, her inspiration and “backbone” to her business, Tiesha also runs workshops on confidence building and exploring what modelling is.
Inspired by her time on country and listening and telling stories with family, the proud Yawuru, Karajarri, Bardi, Wadjigan, Mamu and Gunggandji descendant says she wants to help the next generation experience that same connection to culture and confidence.
“All my life, my family has always given me the confidence to be myself,” she says.
“I’ve always loved myself and felt like I need to express that with other mob as well, to embrace their true natural selves. I love being with my Nana and learning off her. I think that’s why my confidence is so high as well, because she’s just got no shame, that one.
“She’s deadly and very inspiring too. She’s had an amazing journey and was one of the first Indigenous fashion designers to go down to Melbourne Fashion Week.”
The workshops and classes tend to focus on health and wellbeing as well as incorporating individual culture into art and modelling.
“I really want to help preserve culture and represent mob, and try and strengthen that connection with mob as well,” she says.
“Also it teaches people to use what we got, and that you can make something out of nothing. You can make a name for yourself and you can be someone.”
National Indigenous Fashion Awards offer a chance to be seen for who you are
It is this very passion that has led her to be nominated for the Cecilia Cubillo Young Achiever at this year’s National Indigenous Fashion Awards (NIFA).
Launched in 2020, the awards celebrate innovation and practices from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and fashion designers across seven categories.
The awards are run alongside the highly anticipated runway event Country to Couture in August as part of the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair (DAAF) on Larrakia Country.
Tiesha, 24, has been modelling at Country to Couture for the last five years but this will be the first time being on the other side of the event. Acting as a head model and also a mentor to other models, Tiesha says it is exciting to again be selected and also nominated.
“Even though we’re all one big mob, everyone does their things individually in certain ways, and so it’s good to be able to showcase everyone’s different talents,” she says.
“I love being part of that.
“This year I’m feeling like I have more of a name for myself – I’ve built more of a profile and I’ve got more experience as well.
“Just to have a chance to be nominated as well as share my story and who I am … I feel like I worked very hard to be noticed.”
Inspiring the next generation on the runway and as a mum
She is also looking forward to coaching younger models and passing on her experience as a model of 10 years.
“It’s a wholesome feeling. I feel a lot of pride, it’s a privilege to be able to be looked up to as like an elder.
“I feel like they bring a lot of international coaches in, and they don’t really understand how to communicate with mob and just the way everyone is different.
“I just feel like some of the people who come into our spaces, they’re not culturally aware.
“So just to be able to be in there and have my voice projecting on to the girls and the men, it’s a bit of a safer environment.”
Alongside creating her own artwork, Tiesha is also working with Anglicare NT under the HIPPY program as a mentor, has started creating digital artwork, and is also a freelance reporter with the National Indigenous Times.
And it seems she is inspiring the next generation at home as well.
Her five-year-old daughter Macie – who just did her first fashion show with Red Cross, Many Colours of Joy – is already helping out with community workshops.
“She was already running the classes,” Tiesha laughs. “She was teaching them how to walk and pose. Seeing my confidence in her, it’s amazing.”
Yolngu artist and nominee to travel to the event for the first time
Among the other “outstanding” nominees for this year’s NIFAs, is artist Andrew Wanamilil, who will be travelling for the first time to the event from Ramingining.
The Yolngu artist has been nominated for the Wearable Art Award after his piece Totem Collar was showcased on the runway as part of a two-piece silk pants suit ensemble showcased in the Bula’bula Arts x Black Cat Couture collection Lomuyirr-Soar at Country to Couture last year.
Inspired by finch feathers, which is one of his totems, Andrew, 43, says he has been an artist since he was 10.
“I started doing that with my grandmother and my dad and getting all the stories,” he said.
“When I started my traditional painting, it reminds me of all the people sitting beside me and I still remember the old people whispering in my ear and getting the old story.”
Andrew learned his totem, stories and songlines under the guidance of his late father, accomplished artist B. Malibirr, and his grandmother.
He has been working as an artist for the last four years and has become known for his detailed painting style and unique composition.
Also chair of the Bula’bula Arts Board, Andrew is passionate about keeping culture strong in the next generation.
“Culture is my life and we have to keep that life strong,” he says. “We don’t to lose our language [Ganbalbingu] because we have to still speak our language.
“It is important for all of us Indigenous Yolngu people.”
During the school holidays, Andrew teaches youth traditional art, painting on ochre and collecting bark.
Next year though, he has even bigger plans.
“Next school holidays I’m going to teach them how to make a canoes,” he says.
“After we’ve done that maybe me and my grandfather, maybe we can go with that canoe across to Milingimbi.”
Celebrating innovative and cultural
strong work
When speaking about his nomination, Andrew says he has mixed emotions.
“I feel excited,” he says. “And I feel nervous but I will keep my fingers crossed (to win).”
Talking about his Totem Collar piece and painting style, he says he strives to keep a balance between creating something new while staying true to the story passed down to him.
“I feel proud when I do the painting,” he says.
“Now I’m doing a new style – not the old style, but it’s still the same story.
“It’s all in my mind and I’m comparing the story that they’ve been giving me.”
Manager at Bula’bula Arts Mel George says it takes incredible talent to take an ancient story and do something radically new with it while still respecting and keeping it within the cultural boundaries.
“Within Yolngu culture, what Andrew’s doing is incredibly innovative yet still very much based in culture,” she says. “And that’s hard for this mob to do. It’s such a Yolngu piece but it’s unique and it’s never been seen before.”
Speaking on the awards, Mel says it is a chance to promote the really good stories that are happening in remote Aboriginal communities.
“It highlights the diversity and creativity
of our First Nations artists, and to have somebody like Andrew go into the award
for the first time with something that maybe could be unexpected for a young man, it’s
edgy and exciting.
“ Of course, we want him to win but even if he doesn’t win, it still is an acknowledgment of what he is carrying on and creating and that’s really, really important to help build up and put Andrew on a national platform alongside other contemporaries who are doing the same kind of thing.” ■
The National Indigenous Fashion Awards 2025 returns to Larrakia Country on August 6. To find out more or to buy tickets visit ifp.org.au/nifa/
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