July 8 - 21, 2018: Issue 367

NAIDOC Week 2018 - Local celebrations and some from further afield

2018 National NAIDOC Theme: Because Of Her, We Can!

NAIDOC Week 2018 celebrates the invaluable contributions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have made – and continue to make - to our communities, our families, our rich history and to our nation.

Under the theme - Because of her, we can! - NAIDOC Week 2018 will be held nationally from Sunday 8 July and continue through to Sunday 15 July.

As pillars of our society, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have played – and continue to play - active and significant roles at the community, local, state and national levels.

As leaders, trailblazers, politicians, activists and social change advocates, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women fought and continue to fight, for justice, equal rights, our rights to country, for law and justice, access to education, employment and to maintain and celebrate our culture, language, music and art.

They continue to influence as doctors, lawyers, teachers, electricians, chefs, nurses, architects, rangers, emergency and defence personnel, writers, volunteers, chief executive officers, actors, singer songwriters, journalists, entrepreneurs, media personalities, board members, accountants, academics, sporting icons and Olympians, the list goes on.

They are our mothers, our elders, our grandmothers, our aunties, our sisters and our daughters.

Sadly, Indigenous women’s role in our cultural, social and political survival has often been invisible, unsung or diminished.

For at least 65,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have carried our dreaming stories, songlines, languages and knowledge that have kept our culture strong and enriched us as the oldest continuing culture on the planet.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women were there at first contact.

They were there at the Torres Strait Pearlers strike in 1936, the Day of Mourning in 1938, the 1939 Cummeragunja Walk-Off, at the 1946 Pilbara pastoral workers' strike, the 1965 Freedom Rides, the Wave Hill walk off in 1966, on the front line of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in 1972 and at the drafting of the Uluru Statement.

They have marched, protested and spoken at demonstrations and national gatherings for the proper recognition of our rights and calling for national reform and justice.

Our women were heavily involved in the campaign for the 1967 Referendum and also put up their hands to represent their people at the establishment of national advocacy and representative bodies from the National Aboriginal Congress (NAC) to ATSIC to Land Councils and onto the National Congress for Australia’s First Peoples.

They often did so while caring for our families, maintaining our homes and breaking down cultural and institutionalised barriers and gender stereotypes.

Our women did so because they demanded a better life, greater opportunities and - in many cases equal rights - for our children, our families and our people.

They were pioneering women like Barangaroo, Truganini, Gladys Elphick, Fannie Cochrane-Smith, Evelyn Scott, Pearl Gibbs, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Celuia Mapo Salee, Thancoupie, Justine Saunders, Gladys Nicholls, Flo Kennedy, Essie Coffey, Isabel Coe, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Eleanor Harding, Mum Shirl, Ellie Gaffney and Gladys Tybingoompa.

Today, they are trailblazers like Joyce Clague, Yalmay Yunupingu, Evonne Goolagong Cawley, Nova Peris, Carol Martin, Elizabeth Morgan, Barbara Shaw, Rose Richards, Vonda Malone, Margaret Valadian, Lowitja O’Donoghue, June Oscar, Pat O’Shane, Pat Anderson Jill Milroy, Banduk Marika, Linda Burney and Rosalie Kunoth-Monks – to name but a few.

Their achievements, their voice, their unwavering passion give us strength and have empowered past generations and paved the way for generations to come.

Because of her, we can!

NAIDOC Week 2018 - Happening Here

Pittwater Online News is very privileged this year to share some of the wonderful works created by local Artist Jessica Birk. Our view is our original custodians should be honoured and celebrated all year round and so for July 2018 Jessica's great talent features as Artist of the Month. 

Jessica  was born on the Northern Beaches of Sydney where she is still living and working. Birk is a proud descendant of the Yaegl people, from the Northern Rivers of NSW, The Clarence Valley. 

A former Cromer High School student, Jessica graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales in 2007. Since the beginning of her studies in 2003, Jessica has participated in a number of exhibitions including a Solo Exhibition at Manly Regional Art Gallery in 2006 and has continued to work on commissioned artworks. Jessica has won wide recognition for her work, including being named the joint winner of the 2009 QANTAS Young and Emerging Indigenous Art Award and as a finalist in the 2006 Parliament of NSW Indigenous Art Prize. More recently, Jessica completed an Artist Residency at the Bilpin International Ground for Creative Initiative and a Solo Exhibition at Willoughby Council's Incinerator Art Gallery in 2012. 

She has been working ceaselessly since - visit her month long online Exhibition HERE.

ASG–MWP Information Night 
Monday July 9  7.30pm - 9pm 

Guest Speaker Ian Jacobs talking about aboriginal rock carvings at Mona Vale Memorial Hall, 1606 Pittwater Rd. Free event – All welcome. Ian has taught for 30 years in local schools and is working on a book focusing on this subject which will add to the knowledge we have. More on that when he's closer to publication.

Aboriginal Support Group 

Manly Warringah Pittwater

Together we can make a difference! 

When you join us - just $25 per year 

You will help with: 

• Aboriginal Education 

• The protection of Indigenous Culture and Heritage 

• Information Nights with guest speakers, films and discussion 

For more information please visit: www.asgmwp.net

Artwork Celebration - Weaving Bridges Project

Tuesday, 10 July 2018 - 10:30am to 12:30pm

Come on down to Queenscliff as we unveil this year's Weaving Bridges Project - a collaborative public artwork installation on the Stuart Somerville Bridge created by the community, under the guidance of Northern Beaches Aboriginal Artists.

Learn about how local Aboriginal Women gathered food across local wetlands, shore and sea as we celebrate the theme of the 2018 Gai-mariagal Festival - 'Because of her, we can.'

Everyone is welcome! Free, no bookings required. Light refreshments provided.

Aboriginal Heritage Office (AHO) says; The AHO will be speaking at the Launch of the Weaving Bridges Project which stretches along the Somerville Bridge from Manly to Queenscliff. This year the NAIDOC theme 'Because of Her We Can' has been explored in our Weaving. Aboriginal women gathered 80% of all food and this Weaving project facilitated by our Aboriginal Weaver Karleen Green,  is to show a small snapshot of food and environments food was collected in.  

Budawa Aboriginal Signage Group and friends. Left to right; Aunty Lois Birk, Jess Birk, Julie Janson, Lauire Bimson,  Neil Evers, Jeni Thornley, Aunty Clair Jackson - at unveiling of first Budawa Sign at Mona Vale, April 2018

Further afield

RAHS NAIDOC Week Exhibition & Walking Tours – This is Where they Travelled

July 9 @ 10:00 am - July 11 @ 4:00 pm

To celebrate NAIDOC Week, the RAHS (Royal Australian Historical Society) presents – This is Where they Travelled: Historical Aboriginal Lives in Sydney

Exhibition (Free) and Walking Tour($5-$10)

It is often wrongly assumed that Aboriginal people disappeared from Sydney in the nineteenth century, or lost their cultural links to the area. Researchers from the La Perouse Aboriginal community in Sydney have created an exhibition together with historian Paul Irish, which maps the lives of a number of Aboriginal people with connections to the coastal part of Sydney, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their movements tell us much about their continuing cultural and family connections both to Sydney, and to coastal areas to the north and south, in a rapidly changing colonial world.

Paul Irish is an historian and archaeologist who has researched the Aboriginal history and heritage of Sydney for more than 15 years and is the author of Hidden in Plain View: The Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney (NewSouth Publishing). The Aboriginal community researchers are all descendants of some of the Aboriginal people featured in the exhibition, and have drawn on archival records and family knowledge in putting the exhibition together. In conjunction with the exhibition, guided walking tours will be available to visit some nearby parts of Sydney with interesting and unexpected Aboriginal connections. The walking tours will take place at 11:00am and 1:00pm each day from Monday 9 July through to Wednesday 11th July, starting at History House, 133 Macquarie Street, Sydney. 

Please note: 25 people max per walking tour

Details
When: Monday, 9th July – Wednesday 11th July
Where: History House, 133 Macquarie Street, Sydney NSW 2000
Times: (Exhibition) 10:00am – 4:00pm,  Monday–Wednesday | (Walking Tour) 11:00am & 1:00pm Monday–Wednesday [Max 25 people per tour] 
Cost: (Exhibition) Free | (Walking Tour) $10.00 adults; $5.00 children

Bookings essential

NAIDOC - Cultural Island Experience

This NAIDOC week experience an unforgettable day on Sydney Harbour with Tribal Warrior This cruise is the perfect opportunity to immerse yourself in artistic and cultural activities from the world’s oldest living culture.  We will transport you across the harbour from Circular Quay to the beautiful Be-lang-le-wool (Clark Island, National Park) where you will be greeted with a Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony.  Following this, walk around the island at your leisure and participate in the wide range of activities on the island (hand stenciling, weaving, guided tours, cultural dance, Yidaki (didgeridoo performance), as well as enjoying lunch on the island (BYO picnic, or BBQ available for pre-purchase online ($10) or purchase ($15) on the day) before returning to Circular Quay.

Event Organiser Name: Tribal Warrior - http://tribalwarrior.org/
Event Organiser Email: sales@tribalwarrior.org
Date: Tuesday, July 10, 2018 - 10:00 to 14:15
Cost of Entry: $35 (Adult); $25 (Child); $85 (Family)
Event Venue: Clark Island, National Park


Serving Country


The Serving Country portrait exhibition, which is an exhibition by Belinda Mason and Dieter Knierim, recounts the experiences of 150 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service people, across many generations, through digital images, stories and personal quotes.

Date: Friday, June 29, 2018 - 11:00 to Sunday, July 29, 2018 - 15:00
Cost of Entry: FREE
Event Venue: The Landship Gallery, Headland Park Artist Precinct, Mosman
City/Town: Mosman
Event Organiser Name: Harbour Trust

Gathering

An exhibition of ceramics and paintings celebrating NAIDOC Week. Artists include Bankstown Koori Elders, Gary Cattanach, Paul Davis, Teresa Gay, Joe Hurst, Sean Jackson, Lena Logan, Chels Marshall, Peter Yanada McKenzie, Cath Powell, Sharon Smith, Graham Toomey, Kerry Toomey, Sooty Welsh.


Date: Friday, June 29, 2018 - 18:00 to Saturday, July 21, 2018 - 17:30
Cost of Entry: Free
Event Venue: Kerrie Lowe Gallery, 49-51 King St, Newtown