Ryhia Dank won the 2022 NAIDOC Week poster prize

Gundanji and Wakaja artist from near Borroloola has taken out NAIDOC Week poster prize with her homage to Country. See who it is here.

A REMOTE Territory artist has won the prestigious 2022 National NAIDOC Week art competition.

Ryhia Dank is a young Gundanji and Wakaja artist from near Borroloola, she said the competition asked for a work that represented strength.

Her monochromatic graphic design laces together emblems of family, tradition and text while the around the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flag are the only two items in colour, intentionally drawing the eye.

“I created this piece after reading this year’s National NAIDOC Week theme – Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! I knew straight away I wanted to do a graphic piece centred on our flags with text highlighting what we have been through and are still fighting for” said Ryhia.

Ryhia Dank winning NAIDOC Week poster. Picture: Supplied

“The dancing stick (in the top right of the poster) is used in traditional ceremony, and then I have a crocodile which represents my grandmother, she is probably one of the strongest people I know...so it’s all about strength.”

Intertwined between emblems of strength and black power, Ryhia writes ‘White Australia has a Blak history! No pride in genocide! Close the Gap! Stop stealing our kids! Blak lives matter! Health care! Land rights! Stop the lies! Stolen wages!”

Her artwork was one of more than 300 poster entries in the national competition that spokes a $10,000 cash prize.

She will now attend the 2022 National NAIDOC awards ceremony in Narrm (Melbourne) in July this year as a guest of the National NAIDOC committee.

This year National NAIDOC Week will run from 3-10 July.

Ryhia said the week means many things to her.

“Standing together with all of us mob, becoming one; fighting, representing, being proud,” she said.

“Being able to teach others, non-Indigenous people, new people in Australia, just to teach our history. Australia does have an Aboriginal history.”

Originally published as Ryhia Dank won the 2022 NAIDOC Week poster prize