It’s cold outside, but inside the Wheeler Centre, we’re gathering for four consecutive Mondays of Indigenous storytelling.
Oral storytelling is almost a lost art in these days of blogs, high-speed broadband and e-books. But it’s a rare pleasure to pause in our busy lives and immerse ourselves in the magic and power of the spoken word. Australia has a rich oral tradition, which we’ll rekindle in these evenings, with the crackling atmosphere of fireside tales.
Bunjilaka curator Genevieve Grieves and Miles Franklin shortlisted writer Tony Birch will curate – and co-host – a series of intimate evenings around the themes of Country, Sky, Water and Fire.
These elements are rich sources for creating meaningful stories that engage with the Australian landscape, either personally or politically. The stories will be a mix of traditional and contemporary, reflecting the diversity of concerns and inspirations for Indigenous writers today.
Our hosts will be joined by a hand-picked selection of superb storytellers, including both performers and writers.
For Water, we’ll be joined by Alexis Wright, Daniel Browning and Dylan Coleman.
Creek
we were the children
robbed of music
water, air & blood
the creek
a barb-wired heart
beats for us
Tony Birch
Featuring
Daniel Browning
Daniel Browning is an Aboriginal journalist, radio broadcaster, sound artist and writer. Currently, he is produces and presents Awaye!, the Indigenous art and culture program on the ABC’s specialist journalism and arts network Radio National. Awaye! surveys contemporary Indigenous cultural practice across the arts spectrum. A visual arts graduate, Daniel is also a widely published freelance writer on the arts and culture.
He is a former guest editor of Artlink Indigenous, an occasional series of the quarterly Australian contemporary arts journal. He is the inaugural curator of Blak Box, an award-winning, architect-designed sound pavilion commissioned by Urban Theatre Projects, the performing arts company based in western Sydney. Daniel is a descendant of the Bundjalung and Kullilli peoples of far northern New South Wales and south-western Queensland.
Dylan Coleman
Dylan Coleman is a Kokatha Aboriginal-Greek woman from the far west coast of South Australia. She is the award-winning author of Mazin Grace and has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Adelaide, where she ...
Alexis Wright
Prof. Alexis Wright is a member of the Waanyi nation of the southern highlands of the Gulf of Carpentaria. She is the author of the prize-winning novels Carpentaria, The Swan Book, and, most recently, Praiseworthy. Her works ...