Our Story
Miyarrka Media
Miyarrka Media is a Yolŋu-led intergenerational collective creating futures with Yolŋu Country in northeast Arnhem Land.
We come together to share life through films, exhibitions, books, and long-term creative research grounded in Yolŋu law.
Miyarrka Media began in 2009, growing from the long collaboration between Paul Gurrumuruwuy and Jennifer Deger and from Paul’s vision for a new kind of Yolŋu-led creative practice. His spirit continues to guide the collective as the next generation takes the lead, with his daughters, Enid Gurunulmiwuy and Meredith Balanydjarrk, alongside Jennifer, Cedric Dhawa, Victoria Baskin Coffey, Warren Balpatji, Ben Ward and Caleb Kingston finding new ways of mapping and making bitja with the wäŋa. Our base is Yalakun homeland.
Our work is sustained through partnerships with Gapuwiyak Culture and Arts, Goŋ-däl Aboriginal Corporation, the Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University, and support from the Australian Research Council.
Dr Gurrumuruwuy’s image, voice and full name appear in this site at the request of his family and in accordance with his own wishes.
This work is our gift to you.
It’s new. A new anthropology.
A new kind of art.
— Paul Gurrumuruwuy
Our work doesn’t simply describe relationships.
It seeks to make them.
— Jennifer Deger
Dr Paul Gurrumuruwuy
Paul Gurrumuruwuy (1956–2024) was a Yolŋu filmmaker, artist, scholar and Dhalwaŋu leader who co-founded Miyarrka Media and guided the collective for almost two decades.
Through films, exhibitions and collaborative research, Gurrumuruwuy explored how cameras and digital media can participate in the creative life of Yolŋu Country.
In 2025 he was posthumously awarded a PhD by Charles Darwin University on the basis of the original research he produced and published with Miyarrka Media. The film Milkum ga Walŋa was submitted as part of this doctoral project, and exhibited at the Annex Gallery, CDU.
Paul Gurrumuruwuy Wunungmurra died unexpectedly a couple of months after recording the materials for this film.
Miyarrka Media edited the film following his vision.
Often during the editing and translation process family members found themselves overcome by a feeling that he was talking directly to them, perhaps even more than the PhD examiners that the recording had ostensibly been made for.
They felt moved and encouraged that he was deliberately giving specific directions to the next generation as they took on the leadership of Miyarrka Media.
Graduation day, Gapuwiyak Culture and Arts Centre 7 November 2025.
Eddie Garthanthan Wunungmurra (centre) stands in for Gurrumuruwuy to receive the award from CDU Vice Chancellor, Scott Bowman, and Chancellor, Trevor Riley, with Cedric Dhawa to his left, Sebastian Wunungmurra far left, and supervisor, colleague and gathu, Jennifer Deger, far right.
Eddie Garthanthan Wunungmurra (centre) stands in for Gurrumuruwuy to receive the award from CDU Vice Chancellor, Scott Bowman, and Chancellor, Trevor Riley, with Cedric Dhawa to his left, Sebastian Wunungmurra far left, and supervisor, colleague and gathu, Jennifer Deger, far right.
Meredith Balanydjarrk and Enid Gurunulmiwuy beside their mori's image, surrounded by yapa and wawa.
©2026 MIYARRKA MEDIA