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As a hairdresser specialising in colour, Mykey O’Halloran gives customers fresh looks that can open up their worlds.
But the tables were turned a couple of years ago when a customer invited O’Halloran to run a pop-up salon in a remote Northern Territory Indigenous community.
The challenge was accepted and now every year O’Halloran gives up his Easter holidays to offer free colours and cuts to the Yolngu people in the outpost of Galiwin’ku, in East Arnhem Land.
It’s 3000 kilometres and a world away from his Brunswick East salon, Unicorn Manes by Mykey.
A Northern Land Council permit is needed to visit Galiwin’ku and O’Halloran had never previously been. But he has grown to love its red ochre ground, turquoise water and friendly people.
For his third “bush salon” stint, which opens on April 6, O’Halloran and his friend, Thornbury hairdresser Bri Lace, will work unpaid for six days, 10 hours a day.
Last year they saw 220 people, who ordered everything from bright rainbow hues to yellow-topped buzz cuts.
One boy asked for a lightning strike image on one side of his head, and a woman asked for the Aboriginal flag colours of black, red and yellow.
Customers’ smiles at their new hairdos are his reward, and the feedback has been good, O’Halloran said.
Mutuwili Garawirrtja told this masthead in a phone call: “Mykey you should be really proud of the happiness and love you bring to our community.”
Brie Dhamarrandji, Mother of the Yolngu Pride Family, said: “He gives us sistagirls an opportunity to be proud in who we are, sharing rainbows around the community and providing a safe space to express ourselves.”
The pop-up salon is based in a recreation centre room, and hair is washed over concrete outside, using hoses.
It’s hard work, and not always air-conditioned in 32-degree heat.
O’Halloran and Lace bring their own shampoo and conditioner, bowls, scissors and hairdryers.
The dye is donated by NAK Hair, and a GoFundMe appeal has been created to help cover the costs of the volunteers’ flights and accommodation.
The idea was first dreamed up by Sarpa Lui Da Silva – the aforementioned customer at the Brunswick East salon and now the pop-up salon’s assistant and cultural liaison.
In 2023, Lui Da Silva, originally from Melbourne, was working as a counsellor at Galiwin’ku Women’s Space Aboriginal Corporation, which supports women, families and members of the LGBTQ+SB community (SB stands for Sistagirls and Bruthaboys – trans members of the Indigenous Pride family) experiencing domestic, family and sexual violence.
On a regular visit to Unicorn Manes, Lui Da Silva told O’Halloran that the locals of Galiwin’ku were “amazed” with their coloured hair when they had returned from Melbourne, and wanted the same.
“I told Mykey that he had all these customers waiting for him in Galiwin’ku,” Lui Da Silva said.
O’Halloran, who says his Brunswick East salon sits on stolen land, was keen to go. “I feel like we can all do more to give to Indigenous people,” he says.
“I’m excited to go back and see everyone,” he says. “The last time, going home, we were crying because it was so sad to be leaving our friends.”
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