Country Arts SA pays respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and recognises their continuing connection and spiritual relationship to these lands, waters and skies. We are committed to listening and helping care for Country, and safeguarding, sharing and celebrating First Nations’ living cultures.
Reconcilation Week in Mid Murray
from left, Sally Stewart, Ivy Campbell, Neecy Stewart, Mavis Campbell, Anita Hunter and Sam Stewart who undertook the welcome ceremony at Meldanda
Mannum Aboriginal Community Association Incorporated (MACAI – NGANGURAKU/PERAMANGK) performed a Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony before officially revealing a Coolamon made of copper created for the Bushtucker Garden at Meldanda. The ceremony was attended by over 100 people.
A Coolamon is a strip of bark that acts as a vessel, used by traditional Aboriginal people to carry food, water or babies and this one incorporates the bush foods of traditional local Aboriginal people.
Meldanda is a gifted property near Cambrai where the environment, community, culture and the arts meet and the Bushtucker Garden is an interpretive space that displays numerous bush foods and other plants.
The project funded by Country Arts SA and supported by Mid Murray Council employed local artist Alexandra Devitt-Lansom to work with school students from Cambrai Area School and Mannum Community College in three creative workshops to design images for the Coolamon and make the ceramic bush food and small native clay animals scattered throughout Meldanda.
A smaller version has been installed in the town park in Cambrai to inform and direct visitors to the Meldanda site.
Further collaboration has been established between the Mannum Community College Aboriginal Educational Officer, MACAI peoples and the broader community.
This project has, and continues to promote engagement in the arts, community cultural activities and positive promotion in recognition of Australia’s Indigenous culture.