It's about diversity and connectedness.
The quotes below are taken from a special video that plays in the First Australians gallery.
I was born up here in Darwin, because my mother is a member of the Stolen Generations. I'm an Alyawarre woman. That's my mother, and my grandmother's country. Being an Alyawarre and belonging to a particular nation, prescribes and tells me who I am, gives meaning to my life and places me in a particular unique position like all Aboriginal people throughout Australia.
Pat Anderson
I'm Deborah Cheetham and I'm an operatic soprano. I guess I could say my family are the Cheethams of Oatley in the southern suburbs of Sydney. But my Aboriginal family are Yorta Yorta people from the south of New South Wales. I was taken from my Aboriginal mother at just three weeks of age and I really didn't know anything about this story until I was 30.
My musicality is a gift from my Aboriginal family. Very early on, when I was establishing a relationship with them this was the common ground that we held. I had been taken from them at such an early age that culturally I was quite deprived but this was a love that we shared and a language we could speak together.
Deborah Cheetham
Sitting here now today and lookin' at the ranges and hills and the creeks the rock where I'm sitting on, it mean a lot to me. It's my grandmother's country. The country now, even now I can just about hear them singin' straight from the bottom, to our heart, to our bit of a brain box up here. That is where the Native Title comes in.
Max Stuart
My name is Rhanne Lee. I'm a Gooniyandi and a Yawuru person. I like to go fishing with my grandmother and my father. I usually go fishing at Bidyadanga, and sometimes go fishing at Telegraph Pool, which is the river. My grandmother, May Torres yeah, she taught me how to throw net and all about bush tucker, stuff like that.
Rhanne Lee
Hi, my name's Michelle House. I'm from Ngunnawal country, here in Canberra. This country here is actually women's country, so it's women's dreamin' and so you need to know your background, you need to know where your people are from. We're French too, and the European's very strong 'cause I went to England and lived with my Gran. So I'm not a biased person. I've got walking steps and branches everywhere. I'm connected with the world. I'm a world person like everyone would say. I'm a bitsa, but I am very proud of my Indigenous connections.
Michelle House
Well my name's Greg Lehman. I'm from the Trawlwoolway people who are from the north-east of Tasmania, right up in the north-east corner. And that place up there we call Tebrikunna. Tebrikunna means the place where you're going to. It's not until you get back out there that you can actually start to get back down to culture and to people in the community. And that's when I think people feel their identity most strongly. It's a time when you don't have to worry any more about about dealing with people who don't believe that there are any Aboriginal people left in Tasmania, or who expect that you've got to look a particular way.
The first time I went back there, I suppose I was about 25 or something like that. And we'd just recovered a heap of our people's remains from the Museum and the people that were from up there, we took them back, to do reburial and cremation ceremonies. And so that was a pretty powerful reintroduction for me.
Greg Lehman
I was born in Mooroopna, in Victoria, up near Shepparton. We ended up going back to Framlington in western Victoria where my mother is from. I was only there for a little while before I was removed from my family and went to live in the city.
It wasn't until, you know, I started about 1987, I really started writing about things that affected me as an Aboriginal person that affected me adversely as well as, you know, as well as positively as well as good, you know. So, yeah, I think my music was about, you know about a certain group of people that some, and not just taken away as children, but growing up in a society that was, that didn't teach them much about their culture.
Archie Roach
My name is Ruby Hunter, and I'm a traditional born Nunujidi-Kokatha-Pitjantjatjara woman. Nunujidi of the river lands, Kokatha of the Flinders Ranges and of the desert lands and the Pitjantjatjara lands.
You know, being a child I was taken away and brought up with all the fantasia world and things like this other people's lifestyle, you know. Knowing to this day, that something that I as an Aboriginal woman of this land am still, I still am an Aboriginal woman of this land.
Ruby Hunter
I'm very proud of being a Torres Strait Islander, and especially when I go down south, people wonder, when I'm down south, they wonder who and where I come from. And when they see my daughters, because I've married outside of my own race, and then they see my husband and my daughters and they really are fascinated by my little family. And so, I'm so proud when I tell them where I come from, and a lot of them say 'Where's that? Where's Thursday Island?'. I say, 'It's in the Torres Strait right on the tip of Australia!'
Rosie Barkus
