In more recent years, my work has in large part been focused around the healing of trauma. I set up the educational initiative Sharing Culture in 2014, which focused on the healing of intergenerational trauma amongst Indigenous peoples. [The website is still live, but I have not updated my blog for some time.]
Late in 2018, I launched a storytelling, education and healing online resource, The Carrolup Story, with Social Anthropologist John Stanton and our webmaster Ash Whitney (he built the Recovery Stories website as well). I published the eBook Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe in June 2020.
This book, along with the website, plunges us into a world where traumatised Aboriginal children of Western Australia show resilience in the face of great adversity. Their achievements challenge the very foundation of a government’s racist and dehumanising policies. Their beautiful landscape art inspires four generations of artists… and takes a 50-year journey, encircling the world before returning home.
We use ‘faces’ and ‘voices’ of the past, and provide access to a wealth of photographs, pictures of the children’s art and schoolwork, letters, documents and media clippings, that help bring the story ‘alive’. The book and website highlight a story of trauma, and the overcoming of trauma. A story that resonates in today’s world of the oppressed and their oppressors. A story of Hope, Heart and Healing. You can find a summary of this work on this website.
[The photograph above was taken on Friday, 11th September 2020, after I gave a talk entitled Connection: Aboriginal Child Artists Captivate Europe at the Royal Western Australian Historical Society in Perth. I am with Charon Ryder, whose father Cliff Ryder was one of the talented Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup, and my colleague John Stanton.]
I have included a Healing section on Recovery Stories in order to take people on a journey into the fascinating field relating to the healing of intergenerational trauma. If you are new to this field, I suggest you start reading my first post, entitled Indigenous Trauma and Healing. You can then access the second post by clicking the link at the bottom of the page…. and so on. I will gradually add more and more posts over time. I hope you enjoy.
I leave you with a quote from Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, an Aboriginal Artist and Educator who was named Senior Australian of the Year for 2021. Miriam Rose was born in the bush near Daly River, Northern Territory, in 1950. While Miriam Rose is a member of the Ngangiwumirr language group. She also speaks four other local languages. I was fortunate enough to spend time with Miriam Rose in her community of Nauiyu back in 2015.
‘We are like the tree standing in the middle of a bushfire sweeping through the timber. The leaves are scorched and the tough bark is scarred and burnt, but inside the tree, the sap is still flowing and under the ground, the roots are still strong. Like the tree, we have endured the flames and yet we still have the power to be reborn.’ Miriam Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann
The photograph above is of Charon Ryder, daughter of Carrolup artist Cliff Ryder, John Stanton and myself, taken after I had given a talk about the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup at The Royal Historical Society of Western Australia on Friday, 11th September 2020.
The photograph below is of Aboriginal rock art I saw in the Northern Territory of Australia during my overland trip from Darwin to Broome in 2018.
