WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that images and names of deceased Elders appear in this article.

In 2025 we’ll be celebrating CAN’s 40th birthday and it’s going to be an exciting year as we travel in new directions, geographically and metaphorically, writes CEO Danielle Antaki.

With one exhibition already under our belts, 2025 has got off to an exhilarating start! Blending the neon and playful and the mysterious and otherworldly, our High VisAbility exhibition at FORM Gallery – which opened just two weeks into 2025 – was a joyous way to kick off our 40th anniversary year.

The rest of our 2025 line-up promises to take CAN to new places – our projects will see us travel around the state and even overseas.

Our landmark Ngaluk Waagkiny (Us Talking) exhibition will be heading to the Museum of the Goldfields, 21 February – 28 April, thanks to a new partnership with Art on the Move. The exhibition will act as a catalyst for a new CAN project, Legacies, which will begin in April. Inspired by Ngaluk Waangkiny, Legacies will celebrate the unique personal histories of trail-blazing Elders from the Goldfields region.

In Albany we’ll be working with more new partners – The National Trust of WA and Menang Elders, Traditional Owners and community members – to present a seminal new project, Mapping Menang. A truth-telling initiative that will culminate in 2026, Mapping Menang will give voice to stories of Strawberry Hill at Barmup to reveal the hidden histories of this place, and celebrate the importance of Barmup to the Menang people.

We’ll be travelling to WA’s Midwest too, when the third iteration of our intercultural arts project for young people, Now Sounds, heads to Geraldton and Mullewa.

But our biggest adventure will see artist Mandy White and her sister and CAN’s executive producer Michelle White travel to Japan to exhibit a selection of works from the High VisAbility exhibition. We’ll be sharing more details about this exciting trip very soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that news.

Metaphorically we’ll be spreading our wings in new directions too.

One of these is a project that will utilise the power of arts and creative processes to improve the lives of elderly members of our community. Titled The Creative Age, this new project is produced in partnership with the City of Mandurah and will support senior citizens from that region to connect meaningfully with each other, explore their value within their communities and share the power of their experiences and stories with the world.

At the other end of the age spectrum, CAN will be launching a new project called Strange Times, which will see us collaborate with Swan City Youth Service. This project will engage young people from Perth’s outer eastern suburbs who face barriers to participation in the arts and cultural activities, offering them opportunities to develop practical skills in film-making, editing and design.

We’ll also be continuing our ongoing Place Names and Noongar Lullabies projects. While Place Names Melville officially culminated last year with the immersive Doontanboro Kura exhibition, we’ve got one more treat up our sleeve from that two-year project, a documentary by renowned Noongar videographer Hugh Sando. Titled Boodjara, meaning belonging to, the Place Names Melville documentary will weave together the many layers of this powerful project and its contribution to truth-telling, healing and reconciliation.

We’ll be celebrating the creative outcomes of 2024’s Place Names Bayswater project too, a large-scale handmade map and a story which will take viewers on an evocative journey back in time to learn about Noongar life in Beeralayn (Bayswater) before colonisation. Meanwhile the ninth iteration of Noongar Lullabies will see this project rolled out in Kwinana.

Stay tuned to learn more about all of these projects as the year unfolds, as well as our big birthday celebrations! We can’t wait to share it all with you.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge our funding partners, who make our work possible:

• Creative Australia
• WA Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries
• The Federal Government’s Indigenous Languages and the Arts Program (Mapping Menang, Place Names Bayswater, Lullabies Kwinana)
• Lotterywest in partnership with the National Trust (Mapping Menang)
• Community Broadcast Fund (Legacies)
• WA Department of Social Services (Now Sounds)
• Healthway (Now Sounds)
• City of Mandurah (Creative Age)
• City of Bayswater (Place Names Bayswater)

Pictured top: Place Names Melville map // credit Hugh Sando