‘It is possible to change your world but you can’t do it by yourself’ Gary Foley, 21 June 2024.
The First Nations Collaborative Research Web provides a platform for creatives and researchers to collaborate and centre Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in the academy.
The research web operates at the cultural interface and engages in cross-cultural collaboration to provide an intersectional space to share stories, skills and creative practice. Drawing on the diverse skill set of CCCR members, the research web theme produces cultural expressions such as short stories, poetry, multimedia writing/artworks, essays, digital objects, podcasts, and more. These expressions are generative, leading to the production of high impact/quality traditional and non-traditional research outputs.
The key aim of this research and the projects engaged in is to build and grow this research web in a way that centres First Nations knowledge, people and practices. Recruiting other First Nations researchers to conduct research is a guiding principle of the web.
Story is at the heart of most First Nations Australian cultures. It is our own system of education, reflecting the fact that everything is connected, and interwoven with varied permission protocols. The First Nations Collaborative Research Web caters to culturally appropriate engagement in this area.
Andi Stapp-Gaunt
Delephene Fraser
Investigators: Crystal Arnold (University of Wollongong), Delephene Fraser (University of Canberra), Lisa Fuller (University of Canberra), Naomi Joy Godden (Edith Cowan University), Renae Isaacs-Guttheridge (Edith Cowan University), Ashley van den Heuvel (University of Canberra), Vahri Mackenzie (Edith Cowan University), Wendy Somerville (Lead, University of Canberra) and Bethaney Turner (University of Canberra)
Funding: DVCR&E seed funding.
The scar tree project relates to an event that was included the Connections to Country unit, this is a unit in FAD's Indigenous Studies minor. This project was initiated by Ngunnawal woman Delephene Fraser and supported by Ashley van den Heuvel. This scarring of a tree on campus was done by Dean Freeman in consultation with Delephene. The process is a cultural practice that uses a living tree to provide an artefact by cutting into the bark and removing what is needed. This is also part of the tree's gift to the University; in return we care for the tree. The healing of this scar will be documented in the unit for years to come by students and so will become a living teaching tool on-campus.
Investigators: Delephene Fraser and Ashley van den Heuvel
Funding: DVCR&E seed funding.
The project aims to develop approaches for working with First Nations Australian's cultural material that has incomplete or unknown provenance. It is First Nations Australian-led and an appropriate methodology for engaging and working with First Nations Australian cultural material within a Higher Education setting will be used to allow First Nations Australian researchers and potential research students the opportunity to engage in exciting new research. The project also aims to foster new reciprocal relations with artists' communities from which these works originate.
Investigators: Wendy Somerville and Hakim Abdul Rahim
Funding: DVCR&E seed funding.
Leveraging existing expertise and partnerships, the Creative Encounter Project is a co-designed mural project which will create connections through a collaboration between the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Art and Design and Student Equity and Participation team.
Investigators: Bilquis Ghani, Emma Phillips and Andi Stapp-Gaunt
Funding: UC CreatEquity grant, the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, and the Aitkin family.
Website: https://creative-encounter.com/
The researchers in the web also teach into the Indigenous Minor. Our research feeds into our teaching as our teaching flows into our research. The units we teach are:
- Connections to Country (unit number 11128)
- Indigenous Ways of Knowing (11126)
- Indigenous Cultures and Digital Contexts (11122) and
- Culture: Voicing the Living Archive (11861).
The first two are foundational units whilst Indigenous Cultures and Digital Contexts presents First Nations Australian peoples as contemporary people entwined with modernity and technology. The final unit Culture: Voicing the Living Archive asks students to examine institutional structures, in the GLAMs sector and private and government institutions to critique First Nations representations in those systems.
We have received a grant to write a textbook that aligns with our teaching from the Council of Australian University Librarians. The book will be titled Connecting Stories: Understanding Indigenous Knowledge and Values.
Contact us
Centre for Creative and Cultural Research
11 Kirinari Street
Bruce ACT 2617
cccr@canberra.edu.au
Higher Degree by Research enquiries:
artsanddesignhdr@canberra.edu.au
