After a busy NAIDOC week, there are still lots of opportunities to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and history in Canberra, plus reflect on issues for rights and justice.
You are also welcome to join the next ANTaR ACT Committee meeting on Tuesday 2 August.
Footprints on Our Land
Footprints on Our Land is a documentary film exploring the life and legacy of Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Agnes Shea. Ranging from her life as a girl on Oak Hill and Hollywood missions in Yass to the present day, Footprints on Our Land captures Aunty Agnes’s life as a survivor of racism, a caring mother and grandmother and a strong advocate for her community.
Made by highly respected documentary filmmaker Pat Fiske, the film portrays an optimistic woman whose tenacity and good humour brought her through the challenges that were typical of a generation of Aboriginal people growing up on missions. Through her life so far, we see a microcosm of the ongoing Australian journey towards Reconciliation.
A public screening will be held on Friday 29 July at 7pm. RSVP essential. For more information see Tuggeranong Arts Centre.
To arrange for public broadcast or to purchase a DVD copy of the film contact Tuggeranong Arts Centre on 02 6293 1443. (Please let us know if you would be interested in ANTaR ACT hosting a screening and we can explore this further).
Aboriginal Tent Embassy Working Bee
10.30am – 4.30pm, Sunday 31st July, Kings Terrace Barton
Winter is upon us and the dedicated caretakers are doing it hard. They need help and support and muscles. We need lots of volunteers, and donations of fire wood, wooden pallets, carpet, tarps, etc.
For more information, call Helen on 0413 246 470.
Film screening ‘Prison Songs’ and panel discussion
This event is presented by the Indigenous Health staff from the Rural Clinical School at the ANU Medical School. The screening will be followed by a question and answer forum on issues raised by the film, a snapshot of Berrimah Prison, just prior to it being decommissioned as an adult prison in late 2014.
Date & time: Tuesday 2 August, 5.00pm–7.00pm
Venue: Finkel Lecture Theatre, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Building 131, Garran Road, ANU
For more details see: ANU Crawford School
Our Future Our Way: Talking Intergenerational Trauma Webinar
The Healing Foundation is hosting a webinar to mark National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day on THURSDAY 4 AUGUST 10:00am – 11:30am AEST.
Join a panel of Indigenous leaders including Rosemary Wanganeen, Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver, March Munnich and MC Richard Frankland.
You are invited to watch the webinar in person in Canberra (RSVP essential, venue: 50MC Theatre, 50 Marcus Clarke Street, Canberra) or online.
For more details see: Healing Foundation
Star Stories of the Dreaming
6 August 2016, 3:30pm, and also 5:45pm
Arc cinema, $10/$8.
Aboriginal people in Australia are increasingly being recognised as the first astronomers. When the ancient wisdoms of the universe held by the oldest culture on earth meet modern astrophysics, a new concept is born – cultural astronomy. In Star Stories of the Dreaming , Euahlayi man Ghillar Michael Anderson shares with CSIRO astrophysicist Professor Ray Norris teachings passed to him as the knowledge holder for his people.
For more information see: National Film and Sound Archive
Streets of Papunya
15 July – 14 August
Drill Hall Gallery, ANU
Streets of Papunya presents the new generation of painters from the legendary epicentre of Western Desert art. Networks of kinship have ensured the handing-down of ancestral narratives, clan designs and the mental maps of sacred geography which provide the paintings’ motifs.
This exhibition seeks to locate the work of the current generation within the momentous historical achievement of their elders. Women artists are conspicuously more prominent among the younger generation.
For more information see: Drill Hall Gallery
Identifying and Growing Bush Tucker Plants
Saturday, 20 August, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location: Canberra Environment Centre
Discover the many uses of Australian Native Plants. In this workshop we will plant out a bush tucker gar den and learn what species will grow in the ACT. We will discuss sourcing bush tucker plants in the ACT, planning a garden and ensuring success for your plantings. We will also take a short stroll along the lake foreshore investigating the Aboriginal history of the area, including local plant use. If our foraging goes well, we may even have afternoon tea together!
For more information see: Ecoaction
Canberra Writers Festival: Keynote by Stan Grant
in conversation with George Megalogenis
Saturday 27 August 2016, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Visions Theatre, National Museum of Australia
Stan Grant is a Wiradjuri man. From western New South Wales to the city streets of New York, London, Paris, Rome, and Shanghai via Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, Stan Grant has lived his life on the road. Stan Grant is the author of Talking to My Country and The Tears of Strangers.
Buy tickets now here. See the full program and more on the Canberra Writers Festival website
ANTaR ACT events
The next ANTaR ACT committee meeting will be held on Tuesday 2 August, 6pm, at King O’Malleys in the Snug Room (behind the bar).
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