Celebrating NAIDOC WEEK through Art
National NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia in the first week of July each year (Sunday to Sunday), to celebrate and recognise the history, culture, and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth.
This year the NAIDOC theme is For Our Elders. Across every generation, our Elders have played, and continue to play, an important role and hold a prominent place in our communities and families. They are cultural knowledge holders, trailblazers, nurturers, advocates, teachers, survivors, leaders, hard workers and our loved ones. We pay our respects to the Elders we have lost and to those who continue fighting for us across all our Nations and we pay homage to them.
Gold Coast Health’s Creative Health Hub is celebrating NAIDOC Week with an exhibition, displaying the incredible work from artists Lisa Sorbie Martin, Grace Brown, Norton Fredericks, Anthony Cora and sisters Britney and Stefanie Noffke, art duo of Malara Rise.
Grace Brown was born in Victoria and is a proud Wurundjeri woman. Woiwurrung is her language group and is shared by the other tribal territory groups and clans within the Woiwurrung territory. With many years of experience with different mediums and subjects, she now has dedicated her life to Aboriginal art and her culture to find herself and learn everything about her culture and dreamtime stories from her community and her Elders.
The exhibition was on display at Gold Coast University Hospital from Monday 3 July through to Friday 21 July.