NAIDOC Week 2017: Mandurah celebrates Aboriginal culture | Photos

The event started with a walk from the foreshore rotunda to the council buildings, where representatives from the Junior council raised the Aboriginal and Australian flags while young resident Anthony Hansen played the didgeridoo.

Local elder Frank Nannup spoke about the challenges Aboriginal people face and the need to preserve language as a way of preserving culture in a powerful and heartwarming speech.

He spoke about his inability to fluently speak Noongar and his desire to revive the language and pass it onto younger generations.

Following a Welcome to Country, attendees walked over to the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre (MPAC) where children enjoyed free activities such as colouring in, bracelet making, storytelling and facepainting. 

Noongar language advocate, singer and 2017 Aboriginal West Australian of the year Gina Williams performed in Noongar together with her performing partner Guy Ghouse, before the Dudley Park Aboriginal dance group took over the stage.

Following the performances, organisers announced the winner of this year’s Bindjareb Art Award, Flora and Fauna in Terra Nullius, an acrylic on canvas by Noongar artist Sharyn Egan.

Ms Egan was born in Subiaco in 1957, but at the age of three she was taken away from her family and placed at the New Norcia Mission, where she lived until she was 13.

She never saw her parents again.

Her work, which features natural ochres, resins and oils, focuses on the trauma, emotions and deep sense of loss and displacement among the Aboriginal people. 

Flora and Fauna in Terra Nullius is a comment on the treatment of Aboriginal people from the white settlement until the 1967 referendum, when they were finally recognised in the census.

The event concluded with performances by the Maditjitil Moorna Choir and Phil Walley-Stack.