Dear Guan,
GARMA IS ON AGAIN - and its KEY FORUM this year will focus on "INDIGENOUS CREATIVE INDUSTRIES"
Indigenous Cultural Tourism; dance; music; Youth Forum; art; and other features are all there again too.
"Indigenous Creative Industries" is the 2009 theme of the nationally significant Key Forum at the annual Garma Festival of Traditional Culture, Australia's leading Indigenous cultural exchange event, to be held in August at Gulkula, near Nhulunbuy in north-east Arnhem Land.
The Key Forum - coordinated by Charles Darwin University - will feature important discussions on issues such as cultural rights and integrity, and commercial rights and opportunities in regard to Indigenous Creative Industries, including the visual and performing arts, music, film, design, and electronic and new media.
The place of traditional art, and economic development opportunities - including cultural tourism - afforded Indigenous Australians through training, development and practice in Creative Industries will also be discussed at the Key Forum, to be attended by arts community practitioners, representatives and leaders, as well as corporate and governmental leaders from around Australia.
"Aborigines are prominent in various creative industries in Australia, particularly visual art, and dance and music, but there is huge potential for increased involvement and economic opportunities, while maintaining cultural rights and integrity", says Mandawuy Yunupingu, founder and Deputy Chairman of the Yothu Yindi Foundation, which organises Garma.
The annual Garma Festival of Traditional Culture will be held on August 7-11 this year, with the Key Forum occurring on August 8-10.
Garma will again also feature a major Youth Forum (August 8-10) ; the extremely popular Cultural Tourism program - with Men's and Women's programs along traditional Yolngu lines - training workshops; and many cultural performances (including the famous nightly bunggul), presentations and collaborations. Last year, about 2,800 people attended Garma, approximately half being non-Indigenous visitors from around Australia and other countries.
"Traditional knowledge systems and cultural traditions and practices , especially in dance, song, art and ceremony , and their practice, preservation and presentation are vital for Indigenous Australians' cultural identity, social cohesion, and community and personal well-being and development ", says Mandawuy Yunupingu.
"That vital element, and all the other elements and angles of Indigenous involvement in Creative Industries, make this a very important Key Forum for us, and the Key Forum theme is yet another important cultural and art element of Garma.
"Garma is a Yolngu phrase meaning 'both ways learning' and as always its core elements will be the sharing of knowledge and culture - fostering greater understanding among non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians; the maintaining and presentation of traditional cultural practices; and the creation of economic opportunities for Yolngu and other Indigenous Australians through education, training, employment enterprise and personal and community development", said Mandawuy Yunupingu.
The Yothu Yindi Foundation is a not-for-profit charitable institution, and all revenues go to the infrastructure and delivery of its programs, including Garma, which have real, practical community, cultural and economic outcomes and benefits. The Mission of the Foundation is: For Yolngu and other Indigenous Australians to have the same level of wellbeing and life opportunities and choices as non-Indigenous Australians.
The Key Forum program will include the following elements of Creative industries: Performance arts; Visual art; Music composition, publishing and audio; Graphic art; Multimedia; Film and photography; Broadcasting and electronic media; New media - animation, games; Internet content; and Professional writing and editing.
As well as the Key Forum presentations and discussion sessions, Key Forum participants also have the opportunity to watch the daily bunggul and music performances, enjoy Garma art exhibitions and projects, and participate in evening and night activities throughout the five days of Garma.
For more information on the Yothu Yindi Foundation, the Key Forum, and how to attend Garma, visit
www.garma.telstra.com
