Our Journey
Kaarak Nyitting
Our Journey Lights the Way Exhibition
In Nyoongar culture, the Kaarak, the red-tailed black cockatoo, brings forth the fire, lighting the way so that we can move forward and transform the way services respond to the needs of Aboriginal families.
The Kaarak featured as the guiding light in the Our Journey Our Story exhibition, a celebration of the five-year journey of the research project. The exhibition captures the learning along the way, highlighting key impacts of the work.
What we did
We invited service staff, community leaders, Elders, young people and educators to join us for the exhibition launch on 23 November 2024 at the Curtin Library exhibition space Bentley campus. Exhibition attendees were immersed in a sensory journey which explored the key elements that formed the centrepiece of the Looking Forward program of research, culminating in the outcomes of the Our Journey Our Story project.
The exhibition was designed and developed by the Looking Forward research team, Creative Spaces and the Curtin Library, supported by the Curtin School of Allied Health.
“Debakarn. That’s pretty much as… I distil down 15 years of work, to that really. In a sense that was always our intention, our goal, was to actually influence the way you think, and act and do. That is the Nyoongar way. How do we connect with both all of the environment we live in and engage with each other? And by holding true to that and just settling into this whole “I don’t know, but I’m okay in not knowing. I don’t have to know.” In the Nyoongar world it’s not so important to know, that’s where the wisdom lies.”
Michael Wright, Karrak Nyitting Exhibition, 2024
What we learned
As well as sharing the outcomes of the Our Journey Our Story Project, it was also a reflection of the culmination of impacts and change stemming from all previous Looking Forward Research Projects. In bringing together the Karrak Nyitting Exhibition, we learned that following these projects:
Elders are now not only approached for Welcome ceremonies, but they are also asked to participate and collaborate with services. Some of the service partners have worked with Elders for almost 10 years.
New positions within services have been created, including executive positions, that value and acknowledge cultural knowledge and community engagement as part of core business.
Service leaders and key staff are more confident to not only work alongside their Aboriginal colleagues and with Elders, but also practice allyship by standing up to racism in the workplace and advocate across the sector for greater inclusion of Aboriginal people and Indigenous ways of working.
Likewise, services are more readily partnering with Aboriginal community controlled organisations, with growing success.
To our knowledge the WA Mental Health Commission is the only commissioning body in Australia to have an Elders in Residence program. We thank the current Commissioner, Maureen Lewis, for her continued commitment to engaging with Elders and Aboriginal communities, as her predecessors had committed to doing since 2017.
Services now include Elders as cultural leads and consultants as part of their core budget arrangements, embedding their wisdom to deepen the culture of the organisation. So too, youth services continue to consult with Aboriginal young people.
There is a clear picture of the power of community. Bringing the Elders together with Aboriginal young people has proven to be both a healing process and a strengthening of culture, identity and community.
