Living on Narungga country in Moonta Bay on the Yorke Peninsula, Sonya Rankine is a Ngarrindjeri, Ngadjuri, Narungga & Wirangu artist. In 2019, Sonya established Lakun Mara–meaning ‘weaving hand’ in Ngarrindjeri–to promote her art-making practice and weaving workshops. Weaving + culture is at the heart of her practice; it is strongly linked to cultural maintenance, survival and revival. Lakun Mara represents the connection to her Ngarrindjeri heritage and culture of the lower Murray, Coorong and Lakes area of South Australia. It honours the beginnings of her love of weaving as taught to her by Ngarrindjeri Master weaver Aunty Ellen Trevorrow. Weaving is also culturally linked to Sonya’s Ngadjuri heritage of the Mid-North of South Australia, as both First Nations share the same traditional weaving technique and materials.
Sonya is also a singer, songwriter, poet and emerging playwright. In 2024, she was the songwoman for Jacob Boehme’s theatre work Gurranda, staged at Her Majesty's Theatre for the Adelaide Festival. She was awarded the 2024 Brink Productions First Nations Fellowship, a twelve-month supported residency to develop new writing and storytelling for theatre. She was named the NAIDOC SA Artist of the Year in 2021, won the Don Dunstan Foundation Our Mob Emerging Artist Prize in 2019, and completed a Guildhouse and City of Adelaide Catapult mentorship in 2022.
