Pass it On: Preserving Australian Indigenous Languages

Daniel Browning is an Aboriginal journalist, radio broadcaster, sound artist and writer. Currently, he is produces and presents Awaye!, the Indigenous art and culture program on the ABC’s specialist journalism and arts network Radio National. Awaye! surveys contemporary Indigenous cultural practice across the arts spectrum. A visual arts graduate, Daniel is also a widely published freelance writer on the arts and culture. 

He is a former guest editor of Artlink Indigenous, an occasional series of the quarterly Australian contemporary arts journal. He is the inaugural curator of Blak Box, an award-winning, architect-designed sound pavilion commissioned by Urban Theatre Projects, the performing arts company based in western Sydney. Daniel is a descendant of the Bundjalung and Kullilli peoples of far northern New South Wales and south-western Queensland.

Aaron Fa’Aoso is best known for his appearances in ABC’s Black Comedy, which was nominated for Most Outstanding Comedy Program at the 2015 Logies and won an AACTA for Best Direction.  Aaron recently completed shooting Stephen McCallum’s feature 1% and was seen in the Nine Network drama series, Hyde & Seek and in Ivan Sen’s feature film Goldstone which opened the 2016 Sydney Film Festival.

In 2016, his production company Lone Star, along with Bunya Productions, produced a 3 x 1hr drama documentary series on the history of the Torres Strait Islands called Blue Water Empire. Aaron is one of 3 producers on the series, which is screening through July 2019 on ABC1 and iView.

He first came to prominence in 2004 with his performance as ‘Eddie’ in the critically-acclaimed SBS mini-series R.A.N., for which he received nominations for an AFI Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Television Drama and a Logie Award for Most Outstanding New Talent.

Following on from that success, Aaron joined the multi award winning SBS series East West 101 for which he received a 2011 Monte Carlo TV Festival award nomination for Most Outstanding Actor. In 2012 he was nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the show was awarded Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast in a Television Drama Series at the Equity Awards.

His other television credits include the German series Munchen 7, City Homicide, Sea Patrol and Screentime’s Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms on Network Ten.

In 2009, Aaron made his feature film debut in Sue Brooks’ Subdivision.

Aaron is also an accomplished stage actor, he was one of the devisors and performers in the Urban Theatre Project’s highly successful play, Back Home, which sold out at the 2006 Sydney Festival and toured to Toronto, Canada the following year. He also featured in Queensland’s Koeemba Jdarra Performing Arts Company productions of Howie the Rookie and Njunjal the Sun. 

Aaron is a four time Deadly Award nominee for Male Actor of the Year for his performances in R.A.N. and East West 101. 

Aaron has also been active behind the camera writing and directing the short film, Sharp Eye, as part of the SBS Television series Bit of Black Business, the VR documentary Every King Tide for the SBS network, which was selected by the Cannes Film Festival and the Sheffield Film Festival. He was also the writer and director of on episode for the Elements series The Gubau Gizul of Saibai for the NITV network and Chanel 4 France network. Aaron is also the producer on Straight out of the Straits series for ABC iView. 

In 2012, Aaron Associate Produced and starred opposite UK actor Brian Cox in the ABC crime drama, The Straits. The series is based on his original idea and Produced by Matchbox Pictures.

Aaron was the producer attachment on the feature film Goldstone and was a member of the 2015/16 Indigenous Producers Initiative with Screen Australia. For the past two years Aaron has been training young Torres Strait Islanders in filmmaking as part of a TAFE-accredited My Pathways programme.

Fay Stewart-Muir is a Boon Wurrung elder of the Yalukut Weelum of the Boon Wurrung, Wamba Wamba and Wergiai clans.

Stewart-Muir has worked for the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages (VACL) for over 10 years as a Cultural Educator and language specialist, specialising in the Boon Wurrung language and being on the journey of language revitalisation, which they share with audiences when invited to speak on the subject.

Stewart-Muir has a Bachelor of Arts in Education (Primary), from Deakin University in Geelong and also completed a Linguistic Diploma of Indigenous Languages at Batchelor College in the NT.

They're passionate about working with children of all ages from early childhood up to secondary school, sharing culture, language and knowledge with them, and giving them an opportunity to learn about First Nations culture and history from a First Nations perspective.

Kelrick is a Ngarluma/Bunuba man from Broome, Western Australia, who started out as a cadet radio broadcaster for Goolarri Media. Moving to Sydney in 1998, he presented ABC Radio National's Awaye! and was the inaugural presenter of ABC TV's Message Stick. In 2002 he completed a Master of Documentary Writing and Directing at AFTRS, and in 2007 returned to WA to become NITV’s Commissioning Editor.

He formed Spear Point Productions in 2010 – with credits including documentaries Yagan, Outside Chance, Prison Songs, and the short drama, Karroyul – a 2015 AACTA Award nominee. Kelrick was most recently the Indigenous Manager for Western Australia’s state screen funding agency, Screenwest. 

Vicki Couzens is a Gunditjmara woman from the Western Districts of Victoria. Vicki acknowledges her Ancestors and Elders who guide her work.

She has worked in Aboriginal community affairs for almost 40 years. Vicki’s contributions in the reclamation, regeneration and revitalisation of cultural knowledge and practice extend across the ‘arts and creative cultural expression’ spectrum including language revitalisation, ceremony, community arts, public art, visual and performing arts, and writing.

She is Senior Knowledge Custodian for Possum Skin Cloak Story and Language Reclamation and Revival in her Keerray Woorroong Mother Tongue.

Vicki is employed at RMIT as a Vice Chancellor's Indigenous Research Fellow, developing her project ‘watnanda koong meerreeng , tyama-ngan malayeetoo (together body and country, we know long time)’. The key objective of this project is to produce model/s, pathways and resources for continuing the reinvigoration of Aboriginal Ways of Knowing Being and Doing with a special focus on language revitalisation. The project investigates and examines how revitalisation of cultural knowledges and practices affect healing in Aboriginal individuals, families and communities and builds resilience and capability towards sovereign nation building aspirations, opportunities and a realised living legacy.

Vicki is rebuilding the Gunditjmara Grammar to facilitate a new phase of language learning through immersive experiences and home-based, family clan self-directed learning. She is currently writing plain language resources for this community learning.

Brendan Kennedy was born at Robinvale on Tati Tati Country and is a descendant of the Tati Tati, Wadi Wadi and Mutti Mutti tribal lands and language groups. Brendan is a member of the First Peoples Yulendj Group, who collaborated with Museum Victoria to produce the award-winning First Peoples exhibition; has previously served on the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee; is a Tati Tati delegate for Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations and is the Director of the Tati Tati Aboriginal Corporation. Brendan is an artist who specialises in painting and creating cultural and ceremonial objects.