Entangled, emergent, emboldened: an indigenous youth arts group and non-indigenous arts and literacies facilitators talk back to the ‘Big House' (University)

Entangled, emergent, emboldened: an indigenous youth arts group and non-indigenous arts and literacies facilitators talk back to the ‘Big House' (University)

Using digitized representations and spoken word performance, Queensland arts and literacies educators Janice Jones and Lindy Abawi present with Augmented Reality Partners from Whaddup Indigenous Youth Group the stages of an arts and multi-literacies project from inception to public display. The partners, young women of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background, prepare to exhibit their art works in the regional art gallery, using Augmented Reality overlays of story, rap, and dance. This paper as performance uses a verbatim theatre approach, interweaving the young women’s digital stories of self-and community actualization with the voices of two arts facilitators and their sponsoring institution. By critically re-presenting the entanglement of values and expectations of the university as ‘The Big House’ with those of the arts practitioners and the community, the authors as performers unravel the complexities of language as an instrument of neo-colonialism, and articulate some of the ethical and cultural challenges for non-Indigenous facilitators engaging with Indigenous peoples.

Presentation only - peer refereed and accepted.