Women's Business: Kinya Lerrk
29th March 2022
Kinya Lerrk meaning “women coming together” in Wemba Wemba language, We are an 100% Aboriginal owned and operated business that creates design and art to make homes and offices come alive with products which celebrate Aboriginal culture and respectfully acknowledge Traditional Owners of the land.
Kinya Lerrk is the collaboration of Aboriginal visual artist Emma Bamblett (Wemba Wemba, Gunditjmara, Ngadjonji and Taungurung connections) and Megan Van Den Berg (Dj Dja Wurrung, Yorta Yorta, Taungurung, and Boon Wurrung) we both have a strong history of collaboration on design/arts based projects.
Our acknowledgement of Country plaque designs highlight connection to land and Country and highlight the significant animals and symbols that highlight storylines and connection to Country.
We also specialise in homeware and gift ranges such as candles and diffusers to make you feel to connected to Country. We have released tea towels and prints also highlighting important elements to Aboriginal community and of course is a great discussion point to have in the home while celebrating and learning about Aboriginal culture.
Our most recent achievement is registering to be a company. We never thought through the pandemic and living in Melbourne that we would be so successful in growing and marketing our products.
We are overwhelmed with the support we get from local Community and word of mouth referring to our business. We get a lot of phone calls from corporations, schools and organisations hearing about how they have heard about our amazing products.
We have had amazing contracts proudly displaying our acknowledgment of Country plaques in over 300 schools across the Country, Lifeblood centres across the Country, Melbourne Water, Department of Education, Northern Health hospital, Ambulance Victoria, Victorian Police Academy, Aboriginal organisations and CSO’s.
Our advice is for anyone wanting to start a business is to firstly know your own skills/knowledge and what you can bring to a business. Also know the area’s you need to work on. Collectively Emma and I already had sales, marketing and experience in the arts sector. We had already worked together on a range of business projects so we knew each other before entering into this partnership. Also your business needs to be an extension of your passion. Kinya Lerrk is our love and joy for art and wanting to respectfully acknowledge country and everything we do is what we love and would buy ourselves.
We will continue to design and produce our acknowledgement of country plaque line and we would love to continue to work in homewares and products that celebrate Aboriginal culture and make homes smell and look nice. We always invest any profit back into new products and opportunities to bring our designs to the homes, business’s and organisations across Australia. We also love to help our mob where we can, giving back is an important part of any Aboriginal business.
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