“There is little difference between being caught in a violent relationship and the relationship we must have with structures and systems.”

‘I see that on that journey toward a treaty, there is the potential for many great things, for great seeds to be planted.’ 

Light-skinned Aboriginal kids were hated more than the darker kids because we were seen to have a choice of identity.

The Converge on Canberra demonstration against the Northern Territory intervention was held a day before the 2008 National Apology. 

My name is Clinton Benjamin, I belong to the Bardi, Yawuru, and Kija people from in and around Broome in the Kimberley region in the far North-West of Western Australia.

“I’ve seen Indigenous patients treated with suspicion and denied pain relief. We need cultural awareness programs on all levels of the system”, writes Colleen Lavelle, a strong Wakka Wakka woman, mother of four, with an inoperable brain tumour.

The judicial system in Australia targets Indigenous people more than any other group. Indigenous people are racially profiled, are killed in custody and are more likely to receive custodial sentences than their non-Indigenous counterparts. In fact, Indigenous people in Australia have higher incarceration rates than during apartheid South Africa. We continue to gaol Indigenous people for non-payment of parking fines as a result of mandatory sentencing that was instituted to target this very group of people within society.

"By putting a whole range of projects together that mark out some kind of broad perimeter that Aboriginality can exist inside of, it’s offering more than a tick-the-box example, or a single way of thinking of our world. We’re pulling Aboriginality out in lots of different directions because we are more diverse. And no one else gets to define who we are. We get to define who we are," says 2017 festival director Wesley Enoch.