PROJECT
Sandy McKendrick
Artist Natalie Scholtz working on cultural mapping with community members
Place Names Walyalup is an award-winning, inclusive community arts and cultural development project produced by CAN in partnership with Moodjar, the Noongar community and the City of Fremantle.
Inspired by Emeritus Professor Len Collard’s seminal research, CAN and Moodjar have developed a community-led, creative model for decoding the ancient meanings embedded in placenames.
Working with Noongar Elders and community members, Len Collard and Geri Hayden led workshops that decoded the Noongar names of 5 prominent locations in Walyalup:
Dwertawirrinup (Cantonment Hill)
Manjaree (The Meeting Place/Bathers Beach)
Beeliar (waterways)
Wattern (the ocean)
Waugul Mia (Rocky Bay)
Using a creative cultural mapping method led by arts practitioners Natalie Scholtz, Elly Jones and Sandy McKendrick, the Walyalup group explored these 5 placenames. The meaning and stories have been creatively expressed in a large-scale cultural map, more than 40 individual artworks, a series of short films, educational resources and an interactive digital map.
The project culminated in an exhibition at the Fremantle Art Centre in 2021.
Program Manager
Creative Producer
Creative Producer/Artist
Moodjar Director
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Program Manager
Elly is an experienced Program Manager with a passion for creating spaces for connections to grow and for people to be heard. She joined the CAN team in March 2020 as Lullabies Project Coordinator and in 2021 moved into a Program Manager role, overseeing both CAN’s Lullabies and Place Names projects.
Since 2012, Elly has worked in a variety of project coordination and facilitation roles in the arts and community sectors including supporting young people to develop social action projects to advocate for their rights and create positive systemic change.
In 2020, Elly coordinated CAN’s Noongar Lullabies from Home project, bringing Noongar artists and families together online to learn and celebrate Noongar language through the creation and recording of lullabies.
Creative Producer
Natalie Scholtz is an African Persian British Australian visual artist. She is inspired by creative conversations around the relationship of self and society, action and response, culture, arts and change.
Natalie has had the pleasure of being part of CAN’s Place Names over the past 5 years, connecting with local Noongar Elders, community and a range of learning and talent from Langford, Albany, Katanning and now Fremantle.
Creative Producer/Artist
Sandy is an arts practitioner who works across performance, puppetry and multimedia. She runs Sandpiper Productions, a company creating hybrid art collaborations and performances locally and nationally. She has been an artist in residence in Zambia, South Korea, Cocos and Christmas Island. She is driven by a passion to give voice to the unheard.
Sandy was involved in CAN’s Place Names Moora project, working with local Elders and community members to explore their stories, experiences and languages of Moora and surrounding areas.
Moodjar Director
Len Collard is a Whadjuk Nyungar Traditional Owner of the Perth metropolitan area and Professor at School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia. Len’s ground breaking theoretical work and research around decoding Noongar Place Names of the Southwest of Australia has put Nyungar Cultural research on the local, national and international stages.
With a background in literature and communications, Len’s research has allowed the broadening of the understanding of the many unique characteristics of Australian Aboriginal people and contributes to the appreciation of Aboriginal culture and heritage of the Southwest Australia.
Geri has worked with both Aboriginal community organisations, non-government organisations and government bodies. As the former chairperson of the Southern Aboriginal Corporation she gained experience working in Noongar communities to implement social justice and wellbeing projects. She worked as a project officer with South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council for several years and has been a part of the South West Native Title Settlement, the largest native title settlement in Australian history, which will affect an estimated 30,000 Noongar People 200,000 square kilometres in South West WA.
Monday - Friday, 9am - 5pm
PO Box 7514 Cloisters Square WA 6850
King Street Arts Centre
Ground Floor 357-365 Murray St
Perth WA 6000
08 9226 2422
admin@can.org.au
ABN: 72106364407
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