Waigana wins coveted NAIDOC 2020 Poster competition
Tyrown Waigana, a Perth based artist and designer, has been named as this year’s winner of the prestigious National NAIDOC Poster Competition.
His winning entry - Shape of Land - was judged by the National NAIDOC Committee to have best illustrated the 2020 NAIDOC theme: Always Was Always Will Be.
Waigana, a proud Noongar and Saibai Islander, has previously been named as one of WA’s best new and emerging Indigenous artists.
According to the 23-year-old, his winning entry depicts the Rainbow Serpent coming out of the Dreamtime to create this country and how we are strongly connected to it.
“The Rainbow Serpent is represented by the snake and it forms the shape of Australia, which symbolises how it created our lands. The colour from the Rainbow Serpent is reflected on to the figure to display our connection to the Rainbow Serpent, thus our connection to country. The overlapping colours on the outside is the Dreamtime.”
“The figure inside the shape of Australia is a representation of Indigenous Australians showing that this country - since the dawn of time - always was, and always will be Aboriginal land,” Mr Waigana added.
Committee Co-Chairs Pat Anderson and John Paul Janke congratulated Mr Waigana on his winning entry and thanked all of the talented artists who submitted their artwork in this year’s competition.
“This year’s competition attracted a staggering 270 entries nationally who responded to the 2020 NAIDOC theme.”
““It was a challenging task for the Committee to choose a single winner from such a huge range of remarkable entries and we thank everyone who submitted an entry”
Mr Waigana - who has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in graphic design, advertising and illustration and photography - runs his own brand and business Crawlin Crocodile.
“My passion for art and design comes from an early age and my goal is to make a living of being an artist and take on exciting new creative projects.”
“I love to learn new techniques and platforms I can create on,” he said.
As the winner, Ms Waigana will have his artwork displayed on the 2020 National NAIDOC Poster and receives a $10,000 cash prize. With over 100,000 posters printed, the National NAIDOC posters are distributed across the country from schools, kindergartens and universities to Government Departments, organisations and shopping centres.
Last year there were some 48,000 digital downloads of the 2019 NAIDOC Week poster.
The iconic NAIDOC poster has been celebrating and promoting NAIDOC Week since the late 1960s and rose to national prominence in the 1970s with the establishment of the Indigenous rights movement.
To download a digital copy of the 2020 National NAIDOC Poster click here.
Free printed copies of the 2020 National NAIDOC Poster will be available in coming months.