Wunungu Awara: A Digital Exhibition

Presented as part of our 2023 digital exhibition program, these films are part of a series of animations designed to record the past, preserve the present and protect Indigenous languages and knowledge in the future.

The two films were produced in partnership with the Yanyuwa people in the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria by the Wunungu Awara project, a part of the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre at Monash University.

Wunungu Awara means a strong and healthy Country.

The films  feature stories and songs recorded by Associate Professor John Bradley, who has been working with these communities for more than 40 years.

It was born out of a need to find ways to record Indigenous languages and knowledges in a way that Indigenous communities, families and individuals could control the representation of Country," he explains.

Many of the people featured have since passed, and full permission has been granted for their voices and images to be featured.

Duwarra wujara (Two Young Men)

27 minutes

This is not just a story for children, it is a story of creation, of the political mapping of Country and of the carriage of Law through the Country. These are matters which are still very important today. The story is illustrative of how kin-centric ecologies function with the inclusion of non-human kin as part of the way Country is seen.

Associate Professor John Bradley, and his Wunungu Awara team won the Yoram Gross Animation Award, for the best Australian animated short film, at the Sydney Film Festival. The award was for the film Duwarra Wujara.

Songs from the Gulf Country

8 minutes

Prior to white contact – and in fact prior to 1988 – the public art form of the Yanyuwa people was song poetry. There were many hundred of these remembered.

These animations were directed by a group of women who were the last holders of these songs. They celebrate life, hunting, travelling, the Makassan trepangers and understandings of identity. They requested the songs be animated to give vision to a language and form of art that was falling away.  The senior women wanted them shown without subtitles, but for the audience to read the words first, and then experience the film.

These films were officially launched at the Malarndarri Festival in Borroloola in Yanyuwa Country, 17 June 2023.  
Monash University Library was proud to host them for NAIDOC Week 2023.

Meet the team

Dinah Norman a-Marrngawi was the senior director on both films, pictured with Associate Professor John Bradley on Yanyuwa Country.

About Wunungu Awara

Learn more about the Wunungu Awara – formally called the Monash Country Lines Archive – project in this short video.

Meet the team

Language coach David Isaac Birribirrikama, Director Graham Friday Dimanyurru, and Associate professor John Bradley on Yanuwa Country.

CREDITS

Duwarra wujara (Two Young Men)

Animation: Brent McKee
Directed: Associate Professor John Bradley, Dinah Norman a-Marrngawi, Graham Friday Dimanyurru and Leonard Norman Wungunya.

Songs from the Gulf Country

Animation: Brent McKee
Directed: Associated Professor John Bradley with senior Yanyuwa elders Dinah Norman a-Marrngawi, Mavis Timothy a-Muluwamara, Jemima Miller a-Wuwarlu.