Mumbulla School for Rudolf Steiner Education Class 6 2021 collaborated with local Yuin Artist, Natalie Bateman, to create a visual Acknowledge of Country for our school.

As part of the Class 6 student’s final year at Mumbulla School for Rudolf Steiner Education the class traditionally give a gift to the school that will remain after they move to high school. In 2021 the Class 6 students chose to create an artistic representation of an Acknowledgement of Country; acknowledging the unceded Aboriginal lands on which they live, learn, play and work.  

Within this cohort of students there were two Djiringanj children of the Yuin Nation and another First Nations child whose grandmother was part of the stolen generations and came from Kakadu.

Developing this artwork to gift to the school happened progressively throughout the school year but the foundation was the children writing a verse that embodied what connecting and caring for country meant to them.

The ground beneath us,
The sky above us,
The country around us
The water that flows through us
Is and always will be the heart of the Yuin lands.
We respect and acknowledge that the Djiringanj people are caring for our home.

When you enter Yuin Country stop!
Take in the sights. Every river and hill has been here for many generations.
Our elders and their elders before them, have been caring for the land on which we stand. They would want us to take care for it and pride in it for future generations.
So we ask that you respect the Djiringanj people, their beliefs, cultures and languages
And you respect the land they’ve worked so hard to protect.

These verses became the inspiration for the mural. The whole school felt honoured to have Natalie Bateman join the project and help turn the children’s words into a meaningful and beautiful mural. Nat’s presence and her willingness to share her culture, knowledge and skills served to strengthen the creativity, wisdom and purpose of the project.

Under Nat’s guidance the class developed the palette and composition for the artwork. The palette came directly from the colours the students saw in the land around them, distilled through photographs into a colour scheme. 

Nat led workshops with small groups of children over the course of the three days that the mural was painted. The girls painted Gulaga Mountain and the boys painted Mumbulla Mountain, with water flowing through the artwork as it flows through life.

Nat not only helped the children create a beautiful mural she provided a circle of calm and intense creativity in a busy school week.

Mumbulla School cannot thank Nat enough for sharing her culture, her wisdom and her passion for painting, with the Class 6 children of Mumbulla School and with the community who pass through our Hall and gaze on this very special artistic Acknowledgement of Country.

Thank you, Class 6 2021 and thank you Nat Bateman.  

Natalie’s Bio

Nat belongs to one of the largest Aboriginal families on the south coast, NSW. Her family are sea dwellers whose life revolves around the ocean, hunting and gathering seafood. Life started for Nat growing up at Maroubra Beach and La Perouse. Then later Nambucca Heads, home of her extended Gumbaynggirr family. Living at Lennox Head in her early 20’s she discovered painting, she is self-taught. She swapped cooking in restaurants for paintbrushes.

Her family upbringing and cultural connection has influenced the style and subjects of her artworks. Nat’s website: https://natsart.com.au/

Written by Vanessa Spinelli, parent, and member of Mumbulla School’s Reconciliation Action Plan Group (RAP).

This story has also been published on the following websites: Steiner Education Australia (https://www.steinereducation.edu.au/) and Bega Storylines (https://bega.storylines.com.au/).

This title and Susan’s other books can be found in bookshops and online. Susan also has her own website, Instagram account and and Facebook page.

Susan also publishes some of her beautiful stories on her website page under the Stories section. She currently has a collection of her stories relating to the Covid-19 Pandemic, some of them even have accompanying animations. You will be sure to find something there for everyone, from the very young, through teen to adults. Click here for an example ‘A Light for the Little Gnomes Lantern.’

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We are extremely excited to be able to offer you this level of expertise and support in an area that we know has been very challenging for many parents to manage.

To mark NAIDOC Week 2020, I have put together a selection of diversely brilliant books that celebrate First Nation’s culture and examine with heart and truth, the history of the invasion.

My Place

Sally Morgan’s ground breaking novel tells this history from a very personal perspective, but in that is contained the stories of her family, going back generations, and the beginnings of the story of her people. Sally’s compulsion to tell the story her family has, out of shame and fear, hidden away from, powerfully exposes the trauma her people have been subject too, and reveals their pride in remembering and telling truths that had not yet been told, on a popular scale, to the nation.

Living on Stolen Land (and The Tribe)

Ambelin Kwaymullina (Sally Morgan’s daughter) carries on the family tradition of pushing change through the medium of literature. Her poetic manifesto, Living on stolen land frames the issues of colonialism with confronting clarity, and provides a generous lesson in concepts the colonisers need to learn and understand to find a way forward. A powerful guide to the unsettlement.

Ambelin also writes for the young adult audience. Her series, The Tribe is a futuristic series that focusses on a tribe of young people outcast from the cities of the state that has been rebuilt as an ecological and social utopia, having learnt the lessons from the collapse of an ancestral society. This utopia still has its deep prejudices and The Tribe, all victims of this, have turned to freedom fighting. Each of The Tribe has a special power. The mythology behind the world Ambelin constructs is not based in the Greek or Roman tradition, but comes out of the stories meaningful to her, and from her own cultural tradition.

Guwayu and Maar Bidi

These two books from Magabala books show what incredible work this publisher is doing in terms of putting First Nations writers to the forefront of Australian publishing. Guwayu is a collection of poetry featuring explosive young poets (Evelyn Araluen for example) alongside epic figures like Lionel Fogarty, who has been brilliantly and relentlessly bashing at colonial power for multiple decades. Maar Bidi is a collection of prose and fiction by young First Nations writers investigating the complexity of contemporary experience.

Yiwarra Kuju : the Canning stock route

This was one of the first books I pulled from the Georgie library shelves when I started working here nearly 5 years ago. It tells the story of the Canning stock route from the perspective of the people of the nations through which it passed and impacted upon. The story is told through artworks and remembered accounts, often about the importance of the country being so diabolically threatened by the expansion of the mining and pastoral industries in Western Australia.

Let me know if you’d like to borrow any of these books, or hear about others. Let me know about the great titles you’ve come across as well!

Nick

Here are some time lapse videos of blackboard artworks by some of our teachers at Mumbulla School. Along with images of many more.

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