Combining technology and art to celebrate Indigenous stories

i’ll never forget that day that i got

off that plane

in 2017. i had arrived in a remote

aboriginal community that i had never

been to

before i am a social entrepreneur

and it was my responsibility to engage

with the women

in this community to find out what

activities that they would like to do

that would give them

meaning a sense of meaning and purpose

it was during this time that i fell in

love with this community

and many of the beautiful people there

jumiji is located near the border of

queensland and the northern territory

there’s approximately 1200 people

who live alongside the picturesque

nicholson river

and when you’re down at the nicholson

river it’s not uncommon to see a

crocodile swim by

one of the other things that i love

about jummaji is that most afternoons

you’ll see

families fishing along the banks of the

river

whatever they catch becomes dinner that

evening

so when i got off that plane back in

february 2017

i was feeling really concerned i was

really worried i had never worked in an

aboriginal community before

and i didn’t know if these ladies would

like me

if they would want to talk to me if i’d

be able to build rapport

and if they would share with me the

types of activities that they were

interested in doing

and the truth be told our two worlds

couldn’t be

any further apart but i needn’t have

worried

as soon as i shared a project with the

ladies about a

work i was doing in papua new guinea

where we were making care bags for women

who lived in isolated villages these

beautiful women in jummaji said to me

yolandi that’s something that we want to

do

we can’t believe there are women less

fortunate than us

we want to make those bags it was while

i was sitting around with the ladies

that they were telling me that once upon

a time dwimaji did have a pottery studio

it was run by locals and it was an

activity

that people really enjoyed so i shared

this with my client and asked if they

would be prepared

to invest in a cure and some clay and

could i bring up

a really well-known cans potter felicity

berry

to work with the community for a week

they agreed

felicity came up and in four and a half

days

over a hundred people came through our

pottery doors and they made over 120

pieces of pottery like to me that was

incredible

but it really told me that there was a

desire in the community

for this type of activity unfortunately

my client told me that there were no

funds available to continue that project

and i was really heartbroken because it

was obvious to me that this was

something that the community

really enjoyed

in december of 2018 i became aware of a

funding opportunity

and with the help of 78 dormitory

residents

we put in an application and we were

successful

so when we decided to open the pottery

studio

we wanted to keep it simple we wanted it

to be easy we wanted to be able to

engage the whole community

regardless of their age regardless of

how talented they thought they were

so the goanna tile seemed like the

easiest thing for us to do

there’s a direct connection back to

jummaji because

we do have goannas in domiji and i did

learn that local folks often

hunt gowanus and enjoy the goanna tails

for a meal so we cut out templates we

got people in

they started cutting out the clay into

the shape of goannas

and then they would decorate them fast

forward

we now are making the most exquisite

goanna tiles

these tiles are part of a wave

that we install in the community

currently at the dumiji airport terminal

when you land on a plane

what you are greeted with are these

exquisite tiles and as you walk through

the terminal

these goannas they cover the walls

so that people in jomoji who have made

these goannas who may be at the airport

to greet their loved ones or to send

their loved ones off on a flight have

the opportunity to see

their own work out in the public domain

so this got us thinking how do we use

technology

to share their stories with the rest of

the world

well maybe with those people who are

flying in and out of dumaji

or tourists that are driving through

and then felicity said to me that she’d

come across

a app that the very famous french

photographer

jr uses he had taken a mural

of the prisoners in a prison

in california and you download the app

you click on one of the prisoners and

then their story comes to life

felicity said what if we were able to do

that for our artists

which was a fabulous idea so then we

came across

the low-cost easy to use technology that

now we’re all

using regularly qr codes

we’re not the first to think of qr codes

as a way of capturing

stories but this allows us to share the

stories of our artists

in dumaji so you have a go on a wave if

you’ve got a smartphone

you scan the qr code and then one of the

artists

maybe two or three of the artists for

that particular wave

will share their story and a little bit

about what life is like in georgie

but can you imagine that our next goal

is to be able to sell the goanna tiles

on behalf of the artists

what if you are living in the other side

of the world

and this beautiful parcel arrives which

you open up and there’s this exquisite

unique handmade goanna and with it a qr

code

you scan that code and you are taken

straight

to domaji where you get to hear

a little bit from the person who made

that goanna

i mean it’s almost like being in an art

gallery but you’re doing it

in your own home or in the community of

dumaji

this is one way that we have the

opportunity

to showcase emerging artists in this

small

remote aboriginal community it’s a way

we can pay our respects

and honor our first nations people

you