Numbulwar Youth Mural

As a part of the Youth reconnect program, I was invited to Facilitate a Naidoc week "For our elders" inspired mural in Numbulwar Arnhem Land. This mural wraps around the inside of the communities Youth Sport and Recreation centre. The mural was designed and painted as a community collaboration to connect young people with elders. Bringing together senior artists Susan and Beverly Murrungun and Joy and Rose Wilfred with students from Numbulwar school, providing an opportunity for storytelling, intergenerational learning and connectedness.

The Sport and Rec centre in Numbulwar is an essential safe space for the young people in this community, for the afternoon activities of volleyball, basketball, skating and bike riding (and more), on Thursday afternoon it hosts a drop-in centre and has a night patrol office space.

Every day for the past 2 weeks, students were invited to come and paint on a large roll of paper that was set up in the space. We ended up with about 30m of artworks during this project. The mural was designed from these paintings and drawings, with artists from the art centre, youth, and council workers working with me to apply the final designs on the walls. For the colours, we looked at native plants and wildflowers that are in bloom around Numbulwar at this time of year. (With lots of yellow pops for the wattle, which means that the fish are fat at this time of year).

It was incredibly special to see how proud and impressed the community was with themselves and their abilities by the end of this project. I can see that this Youth centre is going to continue to have such a profound impact as a space for people to gather, share joy, learn and play together.

This project was made possible with the support of the National Indigenous Australians Agency, Indigenous gov the council of Roper Gulf Region and Numbulwar Art Centre. Thank you for inviting me back to work alongside this community and everyone that participated (tirelessly) to get this project completed.