NAIDOC Week at TMAG 2018

NAIDOC Week 2018

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) is celebrating NAIDOC Week with a variety of activities as part of its Discovery Day and School Holiday programs this July.

This year, NAIDOC Week runs from 8-15 July 2018, focuses on the theme ‘Because of Her, We Can!’

It celebrates the fact that as pillars of our society, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have played – and continue to play – active and significant roles at the community, local, state and national levels.

TMAG’s NAIDOC Week activities will get underway with a special welcome celebration at the start of Discovery Day on Sunday 8 July at 10:00 am, featuring music and dance performances.

Throughout the rest of the day, visitors will be able to enjoy a wide variety of activities throughout the museum, all focused on the theme of NAIDOC Week.

pakana kanaplila, Tasmania’s traditional/contemporary Aboriginal dance troupe, will lead a fun and playful session sharing cultural knowledge through dance and performing arts, and musician Kartanya Maynard will teach songs in both English and palawa kani, the revived Tasmanian Aboriginal language.

TMAG’s Senior Curator of Indigenous Cultures, Zoe Rimmer, will shares stories of Tasmania’s Aboriginal women both past and present, and the first Indigenous visual artist to receive the award of National Living Treasure, Lola Greeno, will be presenting a very special workshop session.

Lola’s exquisite shell necklaces are also featured in TMAG’s current exhibition Lola Greeno: Cultural Jewels, which is on show throughout NAIDOC Week.

Shell necklaces and the Cultural Jewels exhibition are also the inspiration for TMAG’s School Holiday program activity, which gets underway on Tuesday 10 July and runs until Friday 13 July.

In the She Shells activity, kids aged 7 and up can drop into a daily workshop between 11:00 and 2:00 pm in the Centre for Learning and Discovery, exploring traditional and contemporary Tasmanian Aboriginal shell necklace-making.

They’ll be able to meet TMAG’s Aboriginal Learning Facilitator, enjoy specially-designed iPad interactive apps, hands-on design activities, and contribute to a ‘shell’ string installation.

Younger children can explore the early learners’ play space next door with their carers, which will contain games and resources on themes such as natural collections, shapes and patterns.

Discovery Day runs from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm on Sunday 8 July. The School Holiday Program runs from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm from Tuesday 10 to Friday 13 July. Lola Greeno: Cultural Jewels is on show in Argyle Gallery 4 at TMAG until Sunday 22 July 2018. Read more about the exhibition here.