Partnership with Aboriginal Languages Trust
Partnering with the Aboriginal Languages Trust
I am entering into my 5th year of partnering in 2025 with the Aboriginal Languages Trust (ALT). This is a partnership between the ALT, Western Riverina Arts (WRA), Leeton Shire Council (LSC), and the Leeton and District Local Aboriginal Land Council (L&DLALC). This demonstrates the benefits and power gained by working closely with different organisations - both Indigenous and non-Indigenous for the reclamation work we are doing for Wiradyuri language.
To learn more about the ALT you can visit their website at: https://www.alt.nsw.gov.au/
Projects
As part of this partnership this project involves us working alongside local Elders and cultural knowledge holders. With the support of the ALT we have been provided funds to purchase equipment, as well as pay Artist and Cultural Fees to create short films and animations. One of our important aims is the preservation of Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property (ICIP). This aim is made easier by being a Wiradyuri-led film production company.
The ALT have amazing resources on ICIP. They can be accessed at https://www.alt.nsw.gov.au/resources/research-guides-other-information/
I also wrote an article for the WRA Newsletter on ICIP that can be accessed on their webpage at https://www.westrivarts.com.au/western-riverina-art-newsletters-2019/2025/5/2/april-newsletter-2025
Miil Miil Productions
Miil is the Wiradyuri word for Eye. Miil Miil means in our case "many eyes watching".
As part of our commitment to the Trust our films are freely available for the community. To see what has been created, and to be able to see what we create in the future, please subscribe to our YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@miilmiilproductions1336
The Leeton Wiradyuri Story by Virtue of Water Exhibition
Partnering with Leeton Shire Council and the Leeton Museum and Art Gallery
In partnership with Miil Miil Productions, Leeton & District Aboriginal Land Council, Western Riverina Arts, and Create NSW, we have been working on creating an exhibition that focused on the Wiradyuri history and story within the Leeton region.
Exhibition Space
Leeton Shire Council (LSC) and Leeton Museum and Art Gallery (LMAG) has generously provided us with a permanent exhibition space in LMAG.
We are hopeful that the exhibition will launch in 2025.
Community Consultation
In 2024 we began to seek community consultation for the exhibition. My desire is to ensure all local Wiradyuri voices are heard in the exhibition. Plus, as it is a permanent exhibition, as time goes forward we will be able to continue to include more and more voices.
Digital Art and Animation
As part of my contribution to this exhibition I am the Creative Lead and part of the Project Management Team. I will also be helping to create the content for the exhibition. Plans for the exhibition include content such as: oral history recordings, particle effects, animations (both 2D and 3D), projections, and interactive elements.
partnering with Mater DEi Catholic College and transgrid for
Mater Dei Catholic College Students
In 2023, a team of students at Mater Dei College in Wagga Wagga won the Trangrid's Discovery Pod Challenge.
You can read more about this in the article on the Transgrid Discovery Hub website: https://www.transgrid.com.au/media-publications/news-articles/riverina-high-school-powers-to-victory-in-transgrid-discovery-pod-challenge/
Partnering with Transgrid Discovery Hub
After selecting the winners Transgrid reached out to me to hire me to create the games that the kids created.
Using Microsoft Visual Studio code I coded their games in html and javascript. The graphic elements used was based on the artwork designed by the students.
This was an extremely rewarding partnership for myself. Being able to work with Transgrid and the students was so rewarding and it was great to see that the students were happy with the outcome of their submission come to life on the Discovery Pod!
Leeton Water Tower Projections
Leeton Water Towers
I have assisted Leeton Shire Council on a number of projects that have been projected onto the water towers across the street from the Leeton Museum and Art Gallery.
Projects
These include: working with Illuminart to re-render the Miil Miil Productions films as projections, creating a slideshow from photographs of ANZAC soldiers from the Leeton region, and a Christmas themed animation as seen in the photograph.
Photograph
The attached photo is from when the projection was live during Christmas 2024.
Bundadjaany-galang Exhibition at The Curious Rabbit
Exhibition held in July 2024
To celebrate NAIDOC week this exhibition featured three First People’s artists Amy Daniel, Bernard Higgins and Claudia Haines.
Amy Daniel is a proud Nukunu and Wilyakali woman. She was born and raised in Queanbeyan on the New South Wales / Australian Capital Territory border, with her ancestors being from Nukunu and Wilyakali country near Broken Hill and Port Augusta.
Amy grew up facing constant questions about her heritage and culture, partly from the negative comments of others in her community because she looked different. Whilst this made her angry, she now uses this experience to educate and help others.
When Amy was in year 2 there was an Aboriginal man named Uncle Duncan who came to her school to teach art and mentor. Amy immediately fell in love with painting and used it as an outlet for her creativity and to overcome the challenges she had when she was younger. She credits this experience with Uncle Duncan as her inspiration for creating art still today.
Since living on Wiradyuri country in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Amy has discovered the importance of being on and caring for Country. It is this connection to Country, along with the lessons she learnt growing up about her heritage and culture, that are the main focus of the art she creates today.
Claudia Haines is developing her style as an artist with this being her first exhibition. Claudia is inspired by her family and the stories told to her by her grandmother.
Wirruuwaa and the Giant Kangaroos (Created in 2018)
Wiradyuri Language and Culture in animation
This animation was created in partnership with the Charles Sturt University Graduate Certificate in Wiradyuri Language, Culture and Heritage. In my final year of my Bachelor of Creative Arts and Design (Animation and Visual Effects) degree we were tasked with creating an animation working with a client. This created some new challenges but also created exciting opportunities and gave me the chance to work with local Wiradyuri elders and community to create a cultural story told in Wiradyuri language - something that would not have been possible on my own.
I received a copy of the story from Lloyd Dolan and from this I created a script, storyboard and animatic which I then showed to Lloyd and other community members. Lloyd Dolan translated the script from English into Wiradyuri. After the clients were happy with how the story was being portrayed I begun the work of creating the 3D animation in Unreal Engine. Due to the nature of this being a class assignment we only had about 3 weeks for pre-production and 4 weeks for production and post-production.
The environment created was from a combination of assets purchased from the Unreal Marketplace, SpeedTree models and models I created in Autodesk Maya. The human models were generated using Autodesk Character generator. The Great Spirit was created in SideFX Houdini.
For the animation of the characters the majority of it was motion capture data recorded using OptiTrack Motive and attached to the models in Autodesk MotionBuilder. For this I collaborated with an Acting student, Charles Sykes, who was able to use his skills to bring to life the characters in the animation.
While I recorded the dialogue, spoken by Lloyd Dolan, a Sound Design student, Elizabeth Rehling, created the rest of the sounds in the animation.
While not perfect, I was happy with what we were able to create in such a short period of time. The clients were happy with it as well and have shown the animation to students doing the graduate certificate course at CSU as well as created a book that will accompany the animation to assist in the learning of Wiradyuri language. Hopefully, in the future I will be able to complete more Wiradyuri cultural animations told in Wiradyuri language with one currently a work in progress about Burralgang, a young girl who gets turned into a Brolga.
This animation has played in the HR Gallop Gallery in Wagga Wagga as well as the Temora Rural Museum in Temora.
eXtended Reality Centre (XRC) Seminars
Charles Sturt University presenting information regarding the planned Extended Reality Centre.
In 2019 Professor Eleanor Gates-Stuart asked if I would like to present my work on Wirruuwaa and the Giant Kangaroos using virtual production methods within Unreal Engine 4 and how it can impact on assisting Indigenous people's efforts to preserve and promote culture and language.
This was an amazing opportunity to present my work and network with people throughout Charles Sturt University as well as industry members who attended the second presentation.
The first presentation was on October 24, 2019 and was attended by members of multiple faculties across Charles Sturt University. Further information about this event can be found here: https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/publications/extended-reality-centre-xrc-seminar-xr-research-projects-at-csu
with an option to view the event found at: https://csu.ap.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=4199c395-4d31-486e-b2c5-aaf10050eea2
The second presentation was held on December 11, 2019 and was attended by members of multiple faculties across Charles Sturt University as well as industry experts. Further information about this event can be found here: https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/en/activities/extended-reality-centre-xrc-industry-day
At both of these presentations I was able to show the animation "Wirruuwaa and the Giant Kangaroos" and speak about how during my undergraduate degree I was able to work with the CSU graduate certificate in Wiradyuri Language, Culture and Heritage to use the skills I've learned to begin helping my community preserve and promote out language, culture and heritage.
This talk included discussing using current technology such as Unreal Engine 4, SideFX Houdini, Autodesk Maya and MotionBuilder, Motion Capture and Adobe Creative Suite to showcase Wiradyuri language, culture and heritage. How with software such as Unreal Engine 4 there is now possibilities in virtual production that did not exist previously and that by merging technology such as game engines with motion capture the outputs possible through virtual production are limitless.
A further bonus from being able to participate in these seminars was that I was exposed to other current research being done by Charles Sturt University in the fields of extended reality, discuss some of my future plans in this area and meet industry experts who are currently exploring these areas in their businesses. Being able to participate in these seminars, especially as I was still only completing my undergraduate degree, was such an excellent experience that I was able to gain so much from and helped inspire me to do my honours project with the Science faculty in a multidisciplinary manner.
News Articles:
Evoking Memories
Creating a Proof of Concept for Virtual Reality that can assist patients with Dementia
Working with Professor Eleanor Gates-Stuart myself and other Charles Sturt University staff and students created a proof of concept video titled "Evoking Memories". The aim of our project was to explore a way to help dementia patients feel more at ease when using a Virtual Reality (VR) headset so that they could experience any potential benefits that they provide.
To accomplish this we planned to use a young child character to represent a possible grandchild figure that would talk the viewer through the experience of wearing a VR headset and guide them around selecting some environments that were designed to "evoke" past memories of the viewer and make them feel comfortable exploring the virtual environments.
For the purpose of the proof of concept demo I created a Farm environment as well as a River environment. I created these using Unreal Engine 4 with a mixture of assets sourced from the Unreal Marketplace and assets I created using Autodesk Maya and SpeedTree.
The child model was sourced online and then I recorded motion capture data working with one of the acting lecturers, Samantha Dowdeswell. Using her experience she was able to portray a young child's energy and enthusiasm that we needed for the character - we wanted the viewer to feel that using VR was exciting and fun!
After the environments were created we imported the motion captured data into Unreal Engine 4 where I rendered the scenes out and then one of the other students edited them and attached sounds to the video.
Multidisciplinary animations such as this where we can merge the creative industries and the skills we have with other faculties and their research provide such exciting opportunities and can demonstrate the power of animation as a communication tool for communicating scientific research and information! Furthermore, this project was my first time being published in a peer review journal which was an exciting experience!
The journal article can be found at http://fusion-journal.com/evoking-memories-displacing-the-fear-of-technology/
Visual Dreaming
Visual Dreaming App Launch Animation
I was hired by a local First Nations company, Visual Dreaming, to create a 1-minute animation. This animation is intended to be played at the beginning of their launch event on 18th September, 2020. This event will have Stan Grant as MC and special guests such as MP Joe McGirr and Dr Jonathon Ho.
Visual Dreaming, owned by Leanne Sanders, are a female-led tech company creating a digital solution based on the oldest living culture in the world. Their aim is to enhance well being through storytelling. The Visual Dreaming app is a customizable app supporting people to articulate their aspirations to strengthen social-emotional, health, and well being. The development of the app was guided by the wisdom of Wiradyuri Aboriginal Elders and experts in the social determinants of Aboriginal health.
The animation tells the story of young man feeling alone and isolated and through the app, and with the support of their "Dream Team", they are able to receive the help they needed from their doctor.
For further information about Visual Dreaming please visit their site at https://www.visualdreaming.com.au/ or download the app onto your smartphone when it is released on Friday 18th September, 2020 at 5pm AEST either on iOS or Android platforms.
Warangesda Mission
Future Projects coming based in Leeton Area
I was hired to create an animation by the CEO of the Leeton and District Aboriginal Land Council. The animation is a 1 minute long film of a butterfly and dragonfly flying around a flower and will be used for a project based around Warangesda Mission.
From this project discussions have began regarding a number of other projects based around the Leeton community, Wattle Hill, Warangesda Mission and with local Wiradyuri Elders.