NAIDOC Week

The Senior students studied the meaning of NAIDOC Week. They created art in the style of Indigenous art to tell a story. This is a selection of what they designed. 

Max 

NAIDOC Week (National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee) to me means to respect the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that lived on this land for more than 65,000 years. They cared for the land for thousands of years and now we respect all their cultures and beliefs.

The story of my painting is that the Aboriginal people are all making a camp whilst others gather food and water and pay respects to fallen tributes. The dots in my painting represent the Aboriginal flag with the red meaning the land the black background meaning the people and the yellow meaning the sun. 

Riley 

To me, NAIDOC week means we/I should respect the Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. Because they looked after the land for 100,000 years way before the white people came to Australia and took over their land and took lots away from them. And now we should look back to what we have done and we should make a change to what we have done but what's in the past we can't change that. 

The story in my painting is...the people are hunting the snakes before they go back into the sand dunes. The people are hunting the witchety grubs for food they are coming out of the soil because they will drown in the soil.

Josh 

NAIDOC week is a week to remember what are first nations people have been through when there weren't recognised as important people in the world and they got taken away from their families because of their skin colour and that their land was taken from them by the white people. 

My painting is about how the Aboriginals had to hunt for food using spears, boomerangs and hunting boomerangs and if they did not they would have died of starvation. It is also about how they used to hunt by watering holes and using footprints to track food.

Isabella

To me, NAIDOC is celebrated not only in Indigenous communities but by Australians all over the country and overseas. It traces its roots all the way back to the 1938 Day of Mourning Protest.

My painting is about a group of people and an elder talking about how to hunt for food and get water. 

Finn

NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islanders Day Observance Committee) week is a way to acknowledge and learn about Aboriginal culture and think about all of their beliefs since they were here before us, like 65,000 years before us.

My painting is a representation/story about loss, isolation and sadness.

Abby 

NAIDOC week is about the Indigenous people who cared for the land. This year for NAIDOC week is the Elders. It means the Elders taught the younger people how to go fishing and when the younger ones went fishing they would give some of the fish to the Elders. 

My Indigenous painting is about a yarning circle talking about all food and water and where to get it so they don't get the wrong water from the watering holes.