[4] Yalangbara is located south of Yirrkala in north-east Arnhem Land, and is considered by the Yolngu to be the original place of human creation.
[11] Marika's family participated in the Yirrkala Bark Petition, a significant piece of activist art that led to the Australian government to grant ownership rights of aboriginal land to Yolngu people, which had originally been given to Nabalco for mining.
[12] Marika was among a small group to be taught and supported by male relatives (including her father[5]) to paint traditional creation stories, which were formerly only allowed to be done by men.
[3][6][7] In 1988, Marika returned to Yirrkala, to take up the role of manager of Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Arts Centre and Museum,[11] and also became member of the Yirrkala-Dhanbul Community Council.
The book examines many aspects of Yolngu culture, art, history, tradition, as well as their custodial relationship to land and the issue of copyright.
The name derives from the supernatural ancestor siblings, the Djang'kawu, and includes artwork from three generations of Marikas depicting aspects of the story.
[7] The Yalangbara: art of the Djang'kawu touring exhibition, instigated by Marika and developed with the assistance of other family members and MAGNT, opened at the National Museum of Australia from 7 December 2010.
This was the first major survey exhibition of the Marika family's work, and covers around 50 named sites in the Yalangbara peninsula that were traversed by the Djang'kawu journey.
[17] In 2017 she and Tiwi Islander Bede Tungutalum were chosen to design a set of four postage stamps with the theme "Art of the North" for Australia Post.
And he (Wandjuk) initiated the whole debate about copyright that is still being fought twenty years on.In 1993, it was found that Marika's print Djanda and the Sacred Waterhole (1988) had been reproduced without permission on rugs made in Vietnam and marketed by the Perth-based company Indofurn Pty Ltd.[39][11] Marika joined with the two other artists whose works had been used, George Milpurrurru and Tim Payungka Tjapangarti, to seek reparations under the Copyright Act 1968 and Trade Practices Act.
This was the largest penalty awarded for copyright infringement against Australian artists up to that time, and included compensation for cultural damage stemming from the unauthorised use of sacred imagery.
[40] In Marika's work, the case was in regards to the stolen carpet designs being changed to be "less busy," and yet were not substantial enough to circumvent the copyright infringement.
[43] A documentary film called Copyrites (1997),[33][34] examining copyright of Indigenous peoples' creations, featured Marika[11] and fellow Arnhem land artist Gawirrin Gumana.
[44] In 1999 Marika started working towards attaining heritage listing status[7] for the sacred sites at Yalangbara,[13] which is part of her Rirratjingu clan land.
[11] The site was listed in 2003 on the Australian Heritage Commission's Register of the National Estate,[7] based largely on her work done with Mawalan 2 Marika and anthropologist Geoffrey Bagshaw.
[17] She gave the 2010 Eric Johnston Lecture on the subject "Land Management and Cultural Responsibility", a recording being held by the Northern Territory Library,[45] and was head of the Mawalan Gamarrwa Nuwul Association, a local landcare organisation.
[53] In April 2018 Marika received an honorary doctorate from Flinders University for "her remarkable contributions as a First Nations artist and cultural advocate for the Yolngu people".