WATERWAYS COUNTRY

Workshop Series & Symposium

Waterways Country Workshop Series and Symposium program was delivered as part of the Design Canberra Festival at the National Museum of Australia. The program came off the back of Follow Sullivans: Learning Country (Sullivan Creek 2022) curated walks where project participants were recruited from diverse backgrounds, including conservation, the sciences, health, education, arts, writing, and government.

Ngunnawal perspectives were key, with Traditional Custodians leading the walks and talking and advising throughout the project. Each walk pioneered seeing waterways as places where nature intertwined with science, art, and culture, generated a network of local leaders engaged with the creek's environment, and built community awareness of the waterway and how they could contribute to its care. Looking at these creeks in their entirety, we were exposed to a big picture view of our treatment and relationship to our waterways and the greater story these waterways could tell about the impact of colonialism on Country.

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The Waterways Country symposium provided an opportunity to support and empower the community, providing a creative platform for centering Indigenous perspectives, thinking about the impact of science on our changing relationship with water, and the role of artists in navigating this terrain. Exploring questions relating to our urban waterways, their cultural utility, and how art and science might collaborate to develop greater community awareness of the role and value of these water systems, the workshop series aimed to share tools to help build community awareness and assist in building the capacity of the community that played a valuable role in caring for the environment of the ACT.

We would like to acknowledge the ongoing guidance from Uncle Wally Bell and Aunty Karen Dendy.

This program of events was supported by Suburban Land Agency and ICON Water, Design Canberra Festival, and the National Museum of Australia.