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                    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts

                    A woman wearing a large possum skin cloak looks at the camera.
                    Wurundjeri Elder, Diane Kerr, in her possum skin cloak (walert -walert) as part of the Signal screens.
                    We celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts and culture and support creative expression through Arts Melbourne programs, venues and grants.

                    ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Melbourne has always been an important meeting place for events of social, educational, sporting and cultural significance for the Woiwurrung, Boonwurrung, Taungurong, Dja Dja Wurrung and the Wathaurung groups who form the Kulin Nation. Today, Melbourne is a significant gathering place for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It's regarded by many as the hub of Victorian Aboriginal communities.

                    Yirramboi

                    Yirramboi is a biennial First Peoples festival celebrating the vibrant living cultures and diverse contemporary practices of First Nations creatives. It is presented by City of Melbourne in partnership with First Peoples and Creative Victoria. Find out more about Yirramboi.

                    Code of practice for galleries and retailers of Indigenous Art

                    Read our guide outlining ethical and appropriate ways to display and sell Indigenous art and work with Indigenous artists.

                    Arts funding opportunities

                    If you're interested in funding for one-off arts projects by and for Aboriginal artists, organisations and communities, you can find out more through our Aborigin​al arts projects.

                    Past Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts projects

                    Blood on the Dance Floor

                    ​We hold memories in our blood. It connects us. It defines us. Blood on the Dance Floor explores the legacies and memories of our bloodlines, our need for community, and what blood means to each of us – questioning how this most precious fluid unites and divides us.

                    A choreographer, dancer and writer from the Narangga and Kaurna nations of South Australia, Jacob Boehme was diagnosed with HIV in 1998. In search of answers, he reached out to his ancestors. Through a powerful blend of theatre, image, text and choreography, Boehme pays homage to their ceremonies whilst dissecting the politics of gay, Blak and poz identities. Blood on the Dance Floor is an unapologetic, passionate and visceral narrative that traverses time, space and characters.

                    A story of our need to love and be loved, Boehme's striking monologue reveals our secret identities and our deepest fears, seeking to invoke ancestral lineage in a contemporary quest for courage and hope.

                    The Honouring: Jackie Sheppard

                    Jackie is a mixed medium performer, storyteller, dancer and workshop facilitator whose creations are inspired by the multilayered narratives of Sovereign peoples.

                    Jackie’s work The Honouring was presented by Arts House as part of the inaugural FRAME: a biennial of dance in 2023. The Honouring combined dance, puppetry and physical storytelling to illuminate where trauma can take root in the body, psyche, and soul.

                    The work is a raw and visceral depiction of the grieving process, with Jackie weaving a complex, challenging and ultimately transformative investigation that pulls no punches. 

                    Ngangu biik: Hear, Understand Country at Signal

                    Melburnians were able to experience an audio-visual project on the Signal screens in Northbank.

                    Ngangu biik: Hear, Understand Country, produced by Aboriginal visual artist Mandy Nicholson and Wurundjeri Senior Elder Aunty Diane Kerr, follows Aunty Diane’s journey as she connects to Country, her language (woi wurrung) and creates a ceremonial possum skin cloak (walert -walert).

                    Ngangu biik is a wonderful example of communicating cultural language and practices to the younger generation.

                    Wan Dharridji Balert Gumak Kulin Biik: Iluka Sax-Williams

                    Iluka Sax-Williams is a proud Tibrean (Torres Strait) and Taungurung artist whose broad artistic practice involves acts of cultural reclamation, pyrography, traditional dance, fashion and design.

                    Sax-Williams was commissioned to present Wan Dharridji Balert Gumak Kulin Biik for Arts House Window Commission in 2022; a photographic series that captured the artist standing with strength and resistance within a colonial setting.

                    In English, Wan dharridji balert gumak kulin biik translates to “I stand strong on Kulin land”, and this series is an honouring of Kulin defiance in the face of colonisation.

                    Steven Rhall, Gesture (70º East) New Day Rising as part of Public Art Melbourne’s Biennial Lab

                    Gesture (70º East) New Day Rising co-opts the grid, a device used in the demarcation of (cemetery) space and colonial tool utilised during settlement.

                    Various interventions and gestures contribute to a ‘narrative of place’ where authorship expands and narrative is disrupted. Intervening in the physicality of ‘M Shed’, Gesture (70º East) New Day Rising responds to the site of the Queen Victoria Market by co-opting the grid, a device used in the demarcation of (cemetery) space and colonial tool employed in the ‘making’ of Melbourne. 

                    Orientating the east–west grid of the Queen Victoria Market itself (a mark of colonial Christian perspective) to that of the Land, the work activates the site in a manner which acknowledges the sites deeper history and those denied customary practice and culture. Situated in a shelter on the edge of the carpark, this figurative gesture manifests in the physicality of site, the activation occurring through light, shadow and the perpetual rhythms of nature.

                    Gesture (70º East) New Day Rising was launched as part of Public Art Melbourne’s Biennial Lab and remains at the site of the Queen Victoria Market.

                    Executed in Franklin Street

                    An exhibition honouring the lives of Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner, two Tasmanian Aboriginal men publicly hanged in Melbourne in 1842. Curated by Paola Balla, 26 November 2015 to 1 February 2016.

                    In Executed in Franklin Street, Tasmanian and Victorian Aboriginal artists speak back to this complex story from the colonial frontier with works of pride, survival and resistance. For them, it is a story they have grown up with. Their works speak of Country, memory, trauma and love for their people. These artists challenge the dominant colonial narrative – both historical and contemporary. They refute the myth that Truganini, a significant figure in this story, was the last of her people; that Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner were simply murderers; and that colonisation was a benign process that met no resistance. In this exhibition Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner emerge as freedom fighters.

                    The curator also included a recent work by a non-Aboriginal Tasmanian artist whose forebear painted the pair from memory some thirty years after they were executed.

                    The exhibition also included proposals from three artist groups for a marker to acknowledge the men at the approximate location where they were executed in Franklin Street. Artist Brook Andrew, with Trent Walter, were commissioned to develop a public artwork commemorating Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner. The artwork, Standing by Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner is situated on a small reserve at the intersection of Victoria and Franklin Streets. Experimental and empowering, this artwork invites those living in or visiting Melbourne to discover how this story informs our knowledge of Aboriginal history and contested stories of colonisation.

                    Koori Heritage Trust engagement

                    ArtPlay and Koorie Heritage Trust are partnering to present workshops for children with Aboriginal artists in 2016 and 2017. In November 2016, Yorta Yorta artist Lee Darroch shared aspects of her cloak making practice in a workshop where children created their own possum skin armbands, painted with ochre. Lee then lead children and families, including those from Victorian Aboriginal Childcare Agency, on a tour of the Aboriginal artworks surrounding the ArtPlay building. In March 2017, Wadi Wadi, Yorta Yorta and Ngarrindgeri artist, Glenda Nicholls will continue to conduct various workshops using feather flower and twinning crafts.

                    ArtPlay also presents other events by Aboriginal artists throughout its annual program with partners such as Baluk Arts, the Pitcha Making Fellaz and Aboriginal Melbourne for NAIDOC week celebrations and Victorian Aboriginal Childcare Agency (VACCA).

                    ArtPlay has been a partner in the Indigenous Arts Festival with performances and workshops which have included Kutcha Edwards, Jacob Boheme, Uncle Larry Walsh and Ron Murray.

                    Garabari: Joel Bray Dance and Chunky Move

                    Garabari, a re-imagined doof inspired by ancient garabari (Corroboree), was presented in 2022 by Australian dance’s fast-rising star Joel Bray in close collaboration with the Wiradjuri community of Wagga Wagga and was presented in partnership between Arts House and Chunky Move.

                    This ambitious work invited audiences to join five Indigenous and non-Indigenous performers to gather, to listen and to share the beat as bodies, light and sound entangled and looped to reveal hidden meanings.

                    Naarm-based Joel Bray is a proud Wiradjuri man who has danced in Europe and Israel with Jean-Claude Gallotta, Kolben Dance, Machol Shalem, FRESCO Dance Company, Roy Assaf and Niv Sheinfeld & Oren Laor, and in Australia with Chunky Move.

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