Creating a galaxy of new stars

A new exhibition is providing a platform for an initiative that empowers young Indigenous women through the art of storytelling.

Shooting Stars is an educational program established by Netball WA, and now operated by its charity arm Glass Jar Australia, to increase school attendance and community engagement for Aboriginal girls.

In 2021, Shooting Stars launched an initiative called Art with the Stars to facilitate this mission, and encourage participants to learn more about their culture through art and storytelling.

During the past three years, eight Art with the Stars projects have been completed at Shooting Stars sites across the state.

Last month, a debut exhibition comprising more than 100 artworks, opened in Carnarvon.

The exhibition is set to tour across WA, displaying at Fremantle’s Shipwreck Museum in January before travelling to Collie Art Centre from June to August 2024.

Art with the Stars is an ongoing initiative, meaning the exhibition will grow as it moves to Fremantle and then Collie, as new art pieces are added to the body of work as projects are completed during the first half of 2024.

Each Art with the Stars project runs for between eight and 12 weeks and involves an Indigenous female elder and/or artist visiting a Shooting Stars site to ‘yarn’ with the participants about their art speciality and what the young women are interested in.

Yarning is a form of discourse led by Indigenous Australians to share and connect through informal storytelling in a culturally safe environment.

Shooting Stars postdoctoral research associate Olivia Slater said the girls then discussed whether to create a large collaborative piece or individual pieces.

“They then create those works, figuring out what kind of stories they want to tell along the way,” Ms Slater told Business News.

“The exhibition allows us to bring the works from completed projects into the one space and share them with the local community.

“We’ve worked hard to ensure there were regional exhibitions as part of that process and that it was a touring exhibition, one that would evolve and grow.

“The Art with the Stars program is still running at schools at the moment, and we can then capture those outcomes in subsequent exhibitions.”

Ms Slater has a hands-on role with Shooting Stars sites in Perth and works closely with staff and artists to ensure they are supported.

She said the forms of art created through the initiative had been hugely diverse, consisting of fashion, paper mache, woven baskets, landscape paintings, photographs of murals, and videos of dance performance.

“It’s created a very interactive exhibition, where you can sit down and watch videos as well as looking at everything else that’s been created,” Ms Slater said.

“[The exhibition] not only provides a way to gather the items that could otherwise just end up sitting in a classroom somewhere and not being utilised, but it also allows participants to see what other participants in other places were doing.

“It engages with the local community to showcase what Shooting Stars is doing across the board.

“We all have connections across the state and across Australia as Aboriginal women and within our communities.

"Our connection extends from local out to other mob in other places and even other states. It’s a great way to connect.”

Olivia Slater (left) and Lowana Corley from Shooting Stars. Photo: Michael O’Brien

Shooting Stars metro regional manager Lowana Corley said Art with the Stars addressed the educational areas of health and art and met school curricula without students being pressured or assessed on their work.

“In terms of the health learning area, we are able to improve the girls’ identity, their social and emotional wellbeing,” she said.

“We’re able to get girls to work well with others and improve their social skills.”

Ms Corley said another important outcome was creating the opportunity for participants to listen to the elder.

“[This] is a key element of the program, in that the artist is a well-respected woman in community, so they’re an individual who’d play a really important role in that child’s world anyway,” she said.

“For any girls who don’t come from that community, it’s a way for them to feel part of that community because … at some of our sites we have girls who move around a lot and are transient in nature.

“It’s even more important for us to meet those needs of connection with girls who might have just turned up for a day.”

Ms Slater said taking the exhibition from Carnarvon to Fremantle and Collie would enable it to have the greatest impact and reach as many participants as possible.

“Our participants are stretched all throughout the state, so to have an exhibition that moves is about accessibility, ensuring that as many communities we’re really closely connected to get to enjoy and celebrate with us,” she said.

“Re-engaging participants to come and see their work, invite their families to come and see their work and continue this celebration … because it really is such an incredible achievement.”

Another benefit, according to Ms Corley, was that the exhibition would enable Aboriginal girls to demonstrate, and experience, a greater degree of diversity.

“We have 22 Shooting Stars sites, and when we’ve done some mapping before we’ve seen that included over 30 different Aboriginal language groups,” Ms Corley said.

“Acknowledging and celebrating diversity is really important and this initiative and exhibition is just one way of doing that.”

The Art with the Stars initiative and exhibition were funded by the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries, Lotterywest, the federal government in partnership with the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal, UnLtd, and the Shire of Carnarvon.