Through its 2011 Reconciliation Action Plan IBA is committed to participating in and sponsoring initiatives that promote Indigenous economic development, culture, achievement and cross-cultural awareness.

‘Festivals are important to Indigenous communities for their contribution to Indigenous community wellbeing, resilience and capacity. They increase individual and community self-esteem and cultural confidence, develop local leadership, social, cultural and economic initiatives, open creative spaces of individual and collective opportunity, and provide a focus for governments and other service providers to better engage community needs and aspirations’.1

Mel Brown at her stall in the Aboriginal Marketplace at the Saltwater Freshwater Festival.

This year IBA became a supporter of the Saltwater Freshwater Festival, sponsoring the festival’s Aboriginal Marketplace. The Marketplace provides a platform for local Indigenous businesses to raise the profile of their products and services, whilst generating business and networking opportunities. This year’s 32 stallholders included local Indigenous artists, craftspeople, caterers, not-for-profit groups and agencies (including IBA).

One such stallholder was Mel Brown whose company Spirit Dreaming Australia delivers cultural awareness and wellbeing workshops to Indigenous and non-Indigenous agencies, businesses and communities throughout Australia. Mel began her business with mentoring and financial support through IBA’s Business Development and Assistance Program.

Of her participation at the Festival Mel said: ‘These festivals are an opportunity to promote our businesses, meet other like-minded business people, and extend our networks. As a result of networking at the Saltwater Festival, I learned about a trade show happening in the USA in June. Spirit Dreaming has since been invited to attend that show as an international exhibitor, which will bring that whole US market within reach and have some positive economic effects’.

‘But whilst the benefits to our business are important, the personal gratification that comes from attending festivals like Saltwater outweighs everything. My personal wellbeing is linked to being with our mob, and celebrating our culture and diversity as a whole community. When we come together as a group, there is a true sense of belonging, and events such as these create a dynamic environment in which we can promote and share our talents with the wider community’.

Saltwater Freshwater Festival 2011

On Australia Day 2011 more than 10,000 people came together for the Saltwater Freshwater Festival in Port Macquarie to celebrate the cultural diversity of the local Worimi, Birpai, Dunghutti and Gumbaynggirr nations.

The annual festival is an initiative of the Saltwater Freshwater Arts Alliance Aboriginal Corporation, a peak body for Aboriginal art and culture in the region. The festival provides a positive and inclusive space for sharing culture with the wider community, and is the largest regional Aboriginal cultural festival on the mid-north coast of NSW.

The Saltwater Freshwater Arts Alliance is governed by the CEOs of ten Local Aboriginal Land Councils stretching from Karuah in the south to Coffs Harbour in the north. Since 2007 the Councils have been collaborating at a regional, state and national level to position Indigenous art and culture as a foundation for building long-term social and economic development opportunities amongst their Indigenous communities.

The nomadic Saltwater Freshwater Festival is held in a different town on the mid-north coast each year allowing different communities to benefit from the economic and culturally based employment and training opportunities that arise from hosting the event.

As guests of the Birpai nation in Port Macquarie this year, festival visitors were treated to ten hours of music and dance performance by renowned Indigenous artists Troy Cassar-Daley, Shellie Morris and hip hop artists Street Warriors, as well as emerging talents like 19-year-old local Dunghutti man Joe Black, to name a few.

At a Corroboree dancers from across the region joined together in a showcase of Birpai dance. Image courtesy of Brett Dolsen.

The Festival also offered workshops and demonstrations in dance, aerosol art, weaving, didgeridoo and bush tucker. Each festival promotes a positive health or social message, and this year an interactive workshop in the Mingaletta Gunya (Meeting Place) by Southern Cross University’s Centre for Gambling Education and Research examined the impact of gambling on individuals, families and communities.

The Meeting Place was also the venue for the highly anticipated Blackfella Whitefella forum, during which ex-Senator Aden Ridgeway, GenerationOne’s Tania Major, ABC radio presenter Katya Quigley, musician Neil Murray, comedian Sean Choolburra and the National Museum of Australia’s Professor Margo Neale engaged in a spirited discussion with the audience about the meaning of Australia Day and reconciliation.

Contemporising traditional Indigenous culture, and providing an inclusive space for cultural exchange and reconciliation are central to Festival planning. Saltwater Freshwater Arts Alliance program manager Alison Page said: ‘For the broader community, since the Apology to the Stolen Generation in February 2008, there has been a significant increase in the desire for reconciliation and events such as the Festival, which promote cultural exchange, capitalise and build on this goodwill and increase the awareness of the local identities of the region’s Aboriginal communities’.

Find out more about the Saltwater Freshwater Festival (external website, new window).

1. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, 2010, Indigenous Cultural Festivals: Evaluating Impact on Community Health and Wellbeing, prepared by P Phipps & L Slater, Globalism Research Centre, Melbourne.