The hundredth Turruk workshop/yarning circle, Weaving Stories of Change gathering on 29 October with 90 people in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD, had both an air of celebration and sombre reality to it.
The celebration was in recognition of Turruk’s reach and impact over nearly five years. Over 3000 participants have registered for Turruk programs, ranging from the five-session ‘master classes’ to ‘on-country’ cultural immersions, from weaving ‘yarning circles’ to corporate training seminars, all First Peoples-led, and all part of IofC Australia’s Trustbuilding through Truth-telling & Truth-hearing program. One of the key partner corporates through this journey, the international architectural firm Woods Bagot, generously hosted this hundredth Turruk event in their head office in line with their Reconciliation Action Plan.
The celebration was warmed by a soulful yidaki healing by Les Lipwurunga Huddleston, from Larrakia country, and an ‘art parade’ of culturally-rich paintings, a possum cloak, and baskets, earrings and necklaces, woven under instruction of Boonwurrung weaver Bianca Easton during the recent Turruk programs in Melbourne’s docklands. The evening’s program also featured a first screening of Michael Wood’s soon to be released documentary describing the reach of Turruk programs and how a local yarning circle can be set up.
But the celebration went beyond running intercultural programs. ‘It is a celebration of friendships that have grown, sometimes through heartbreak,’ said Turruk’s project manager Sarah Naarden, commenting on the failure of the Voice Referendum and the ‘army of allies’ that emerged through that campaign, many in the room. ‘Truth-telling can be quite brutal and sometimes you need a light touch to get painful experiences across.’
‘Truth-telling has ‘changed my life’, said Sarah. Describing her own 20 year ‘agitation’ to close the gap in her own indigenous education, she has learned that ‘trust is not a bridge that is built but a pearl that is cultivated. The value is in transforming the grit and the agitation into layers and layers of learned wisdom.’ ‘One of the pearls we can all experience is inner change,’ she continued, pointing to ‘the little pearl’ of IofC’s logo, which moves from good intentions to pivoting down into a source of agitation, honest reflecting in quiet time till it pivots back up with a spring in the step. Following the same pattern, this evolution forms the guiding principles of the Turruk program: authentic leadership, inclusive dialogues, healing of historical wounds, and the birth of collaborations. Led by First Peoples and truth-telling, said Sarah, this process helps ‘decolonise our thinking with a culture of care, to see the world through another cultural view’.
The ‘sombre reality’ was never far from the celebration. An acknowledgement of country given as ‘slam’ poetry by Stephen Thorpe, a GunaiKurnai Gundjitmara and Yorta Yorta man, opened by celebrating that all present are ‘spiritual beings, and I am because of you’, and was followed by a litany of harsh realities ending with, ‘genocide exists, so check your reality’.
A Melbourne City Councillor and human rights lawyer Dr Olivia Ball began by acknowledging that the City Council met on ‘stolen land’ before moving on to her explanation of ‘cultural genocide’ and ending with the challenge of current legislation to establish a Treaty in the State of Victoria (which has since passed but will face opposition from some political quarters.) The costs of the evening were largely covered by a grant from the City of Melbourne’s ‘Aboriginal Melbourne’ fund.
Although not able to attend, a message was sent from one of first voices in the Turruk conversations: Wiradjuri artist and priest, Glenn Loughrey. Thanking Sarah and the Turruk team ‘for their courage… in exploring peace-making and treaty within the Australian and Victorian landscape,’ he particularly acknowledged Wurundjeri and Yorta Yorta elder Uncle Shane Charles and his nephew Dylan Charles, who played a key part in Turruk’s early formation.
‘Turruk has travelled some difficult paths and asked uncomfortable questions,’ wrote Glenn Loughrey. ‘In doing so, it has helped many Australians from all backgrounds to examine their own, and our society’s, blind spots on race and reconciliation. Like all important journeys, it has not been perfect, and that is what gives it value. We learn from our mistakes and our attempts…
‘Along the way, this journey has intersected with some profound moments in our shared story — the formation of the First People’s Assembly, the Voice referendum, truth-telling, and now the movement toward Victoria becoming the first state to have a Treaty with its Original People — a milestone of great significance.’
Then, recognising that Sarah Naarden will no longer work as Project Manager for Turruk, he voiced the question on everyone’s minds: ‘This is not the end. It is the beginning of an ongoing learning journey… Tonight, we celebrate not only what has been achieved, but also what remains to be done. I challenge each of you to act on what you have learned, stay open to what is still to be uncovered, and remain engaged in this process — to walk boldly together into the future.’
Written by: Mike Brown
Photo credits: Sarah Naarden
- A consistent participant and volunteer in the Turruk programs Liz Weeks shares her writing inspired by the ‘Weaving Stories of Change’ program, and by Noel Pearson’s belief that the Australian Story encompasses three narratives that could unite us. Read it here.