Harnessing contemporary art forms to celebrate Noongar language, heritage and culture, Place Names combines community-held knowledge with academic rigour to unpack the original meanings behind Noongar placenames.

Inspired by Len Collard’s seminal research which highlights that every Noongar placename is a sentence often describing a place’s meaning, CAN and Moodjar Consultancy have developed a community-led model that decodes the ancient meanings embedded in placenames, through artistic expression. The process puts Noongar knowledge at the forefront, drawing on local Elders’ language and memories as primary sources, while drawing on historical documents and wordlists created by European settlers, to uncover the meaning of the placename.