Where to Celebrate NAIDOC Week in Sydney

The mini-festival, which will take place on Saturday, July 14, is hosted by Sydney’s only First Nations radio station Koori Radio and presented in collaboration with contemporary art space Carriageworks. The event promotes the talents of established and young Indigenous artists to a large and diverse audience while also advocating for a broader appreciation of Aboriginal arts and culture.

For $15, you can expect a great mix of hard-hitting beats and sultry tones across the night, with things kicking off at 8pm. Adelaide electro-soul act Electric Fields are top billed. Organiser Koori Radio 97.3FM has been on-air since 1993, offering listeners a ‘live and deadly’ cultural mix of Australian and International Indigenous music interspersed with discussions on news, current affairs and community information.

Bangarra Dance Theatre’s new work Dark Emu is an exploration of the relationship between Australia’s Aboriginal people and the land — and their extraordinary knowledge of Australia’s plants, animals, landforms and climate. It’s also a portrait of the harrowing impact European settlement had on this bond. The show takes inspiration from Bruce Pascoe’s nonfiction book of the same name, which covers the complexities of indigenous farming, fishing and landcare techniques. Premiering at Sydney Opera House between June 12 and July 14, Dark Emu is Page’s 25th project for Bangarra. In putting together the 70-minute, four-part show, he worked closely with dancers and collaborators Yolande Brown and Daniel Riley, as well as the Bangarra troupe. Image: Daniel Boud.

There’s something secretive and special about slipping into an art gallery after hours. Add a few laughs and a glass of wine, and it’s pretty difficult to imagine a more seductive reason to get out of your house for the night.

Running over Wednesday, July 11 and Wednesday, July 18, the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ is hosting a series of late-night events as part of NAIDOC Week — a week-long celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and achievements. The highlight of the two nights, kicking off at 6.30 both weeks, is Faboriginal, an art game show run by Aboriginal writer and comedian Steven Oliver. Two teams will battle it out on topics relating to the gallery’s Indigenous Australian art collection. Brush up on your trivia, as the crowd will be called out to help when the teams get stumped.

The late-night events are only one part of the AGNSW’s NAIDOC Week celebrations, to see the full lineup, head to the website.

If you’ve always longed to learn how to weave coconut fronds, cook with native ingredients or meet a dingo up close, here’s your chance. As part of NAIDOC Week, Barangaroo is hosting Women of Craft: a showcase of traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s arts, crafts, cooking, music and knowledge. And it’s completely free.

All day long on Sunday, July 8, you’ll get the chance to watch demonstrations, take part in free workshops and see traditions in action. The morning will kick off at 10am with a cleansing smoking ceremony, followed by a sand circle dance by Buuja Buuja Butterfly Dance Group. Next up will be a string of workshops. Learn how to weave coconut fronds, banana leaves and lomandra, all under the guidance of experts including Mimi Aboriginal Arts, Sylvia Nakachi and Hannah Gutchen. Then, discover the intricacies involved in making shell jewellery with Julie Freeman and her son Clive Freeman.

Three First Nations artists share their personal processes of decolonising mind and body, at The Bearded Tit’s powerful exhibition Green On Red. Running until August 18, the multidisciplinary show coincides with NAIDOC Week celebrations, embracing its 2018 theme ‘Because of her, we can!’ as it pulls together the work of three uncompromising females. Amala Groom’s video piece The Invisibility of Blackness explores the disappearance of cultural identity, while her Totes Appropes bags are a not-so-subtle dig at Chanel’s $1930 limited edition luxury boomerang, highlighting the issue of cultural appropriation.

You’ll also catch a thought-provoking work by Southern Arrernte, Kaytetye and Anmatyerre artist Carmen Glynn-Braun, featuring variously coloured paint ‘skins’ hung in rows — a reference to the lengths fair-skinned First Nations people are forced to go to prove their ‘Aboriginality’. Yamatji Wajarri woman Nicole Monks offers visitors a peek through her Invisible mirror, while a collaboration between Nicole Monks & Amala Groom, titled FAIRER 2018, pays homage to the ‘Boycott ’88’ bicentennial protests 30 years on. Image: Carmen Glynn-Braun, Untitled, 2018

NAIDOC Week happens in the first full week of July every year, with a packed program of events to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The theme this year? ‘Because of her, we can!’ One of the biggest events of the week is NAIDOC in the City, which invites Sydneysiders down to Hyde Park for a day of festivities on Saturday, July 14. The event is a sensory delight (seriously). Underground earth ovens will be temporarily installed in the park, cooking up slow-cooked samplers of everything from kangaroo fillets to crocodile puffs and lemon myrtle barramundi. Rocks heated by fire cook the foods under a blanket of banana leaves, branches, wet hessian and sand. While you’re there, watch didgeridoo workshops, join traditional dance circles and settle in for storytelling sessions. There will also be a range of market stalls showcasing arts, crafts and books.

Image: Joseph Mayers

As part of NAIDOC Week, a week-long celebration of Indigenous Australians’ and Torres Strait Islanders’ culture, the Museum of Contemporary Art is hosting two free lunchtime movie screenings. The screenings kick off on Tuesday, July 10, with We Fight (Guniwaya Ngigu) a documentary following Aboriginal Australians’ protest of the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games. The film shows the gathering of Aboriginal peoples from all over the country in resistance of and solidarity against the inequality shown to them by the Games and the government. It’s also one of the first documentaries both directed and produced by an entirely Aboriginal company.

Jedda, one of the first Australian feature films with an Aboriginal lead, will play on Thursday, July 12. The 1955 film focuses on the struggle of a girl caught between her Indigenous heritage and her upbringing by a white woman. The movie is also known as the first colour film made in Australia depicting the Australian landscape. Viewings for both films start at 12pm. The free lunchtime screens are part of the gallery’s week-long NAIDOC celebration.