The work of two important programs that receive funding through our Indigenous Languages and Arts (ILA) program were acknowledged at the annual ATOM Awards, which recognise film and media excellence in education and industry.
The first was the Bininj Kunwok Language Project, for which the team which worked closely with the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of South Australia and Maningria Arts and Culture to develop a website to accompany the John Mawurndjul exhibition – I am the old and the new.
The website is a digital keeping place which provides online access to Mawurndjul’s artworks, Kuninjku language, culture and philosophy.
John Mawurndjul AM is celebrated for his mastery of rarrk (fine-painted cross-hatching), a tradition shared by generations of Kuninjku artists. The exhibition of bark paintings and sculptures tells the stories of Kuninjku culture.
The project has a significant Kuninjku language component and won the award for the Best Indigenous Website. The touring exhibition is also supported by the Australian Government’s Visions of Australia program and is still touring around regional Australia.
The other funded organisation to receive recognition at the ATOM Awards was the SharingStories Foundation.
Their creative collaboration with the Nyikina Community, ‘Woonyoomboo the Night Heron’, was winner of the Best Educational App or Ebook Category.
The fully bilingual project is the result of many years work from Senior Cultural Custodians Annie Nayina Milgin and Darraga Watson, who led the Woonyoomboo Project, Nyikina community participants and the SharingStories Foundation.
It includes a dynamic interactive map with drone footage, songs, photographs, animations and drawings relating to 26 important sites. More than 50 songs were recorded, some of them collectively recalled and remembered as senior community members travelled on Country together.
Over 100 Nyikina senior custodians, young people and community members have joined together with the SharingStories Foundation to produce and distribute this unique insight into Nyikina Country, culture and language.
The Woonyoomboo Project has featured on our International Year of Indigenous Languages web page. It will be officially launched in Community next year.
