Indigenous festivals are journeys within a journey. In addition to providing an important opportunity to socialize, Indigenous festivals assert a political and cultural presence in a temporal public space for Indigenous peoples. They commemorate everyday community relationships and maintain the shaping and re-shaping of meaning making practices. Indigenous festivals essentially, should not simply be a program of recreational activities but rather, a celebration of Indigenous people’s struggles and recognition of the intrinsic and vital role that they should play in the Australian nation-state.
No festival can survive in isolation and the Yalukit Willam Ngargee has shown clearly that reciprocity is a key factor in this festival’s existence. Reciprocity is the life of the festival, creating a succession of spaces that enables further spaces to be created. Whilst being a robust and vulnerable aspect of the festival, reciprocity takes time to establish among many diverse people and various layers of decision-making processes. Reciprocity within the festival brings together an array of complicated assumptions for the simple expectation that a cyclical gathering will represent a local community’s motivations and values.
The guidance of Elders, such as Aunty Carolyn, was a foundation of the research project’s local practice. The festival was a persuasive mechanism for creating spaces to safeguard Yalukit Wilam, Boon Wurrung and South East Australian intangible cultural heritage practices. Aunty Carolyn, Indigenous artists, and festival artist colleagues worked together to create multiple liminal lines such as exhibitions, stages,
theatres, publications and forums for the performative mediation of language, arts and cultural practices.
The research project is one of the first of its kind in Australia to discuss local
government and Indigenous festivals in relative detail. It has demonstrated that local government can have an enabling role in providing festival and administrative
avenues that have the potential to facilitate cultural redress; but this must be owned by the Indigenous communities themselves. It is contended here that local governments have the infrastructure for facilitating festivals of a similar scale to the Yalukit Willam Ngargee. Further, the research project has shown that they can be a conduit for empowering local Indigenous community members in economic development, cultural reclamation, wellbeing, employment and social justice. It is the consistent community approach that local government can champion by building trust with Indigenous community members through festivals and cultural programs.
Indigenous Arts Officers are an active cultural link between what the council can do and what the community wants to do. Local government has to keep in mind that the Indigenous Arts Officer’s role is a specialized cultural position. To a large extent the manner in which, and the degree to which, a Council maintains support networks for its Indigenous Arts Officer reinforces – or otherwise – the Council’s reputation within the Indigenous community. Indigenous Arts Officers, in working across two worlds, have a high degree of responsibility and have to navigate what can be at times a precarious path of internal and external expectations. Such a role demands
consideration being given to succession planning to ensure that achievements and gains in negotiating these paths are not lost.
Festival environmental sustainability was shown to be achievable through incremental practices; at the same time it was demonstrated that gains could lose traction if they were not seen as part of the whole festival philosophy, planning and production. The primary tool needed for festival environmental sustainability is the resolve for it to become an intrinsic part of the production. All festivals have an effect not only on their environmental surrounds, but also on the resources used in making them happen. It should be considered that regardless of a person’s role or nature of involvement in a
festival, it is everyone’s responsibility to leave no trace; one person’s waste is everyone’s concern.
You can never go to the same festival twice as no two festivals will ever be the same. Festival artists then, have the opportunity to question and inspire society through public gatherings. It would be safe to state that no festival artist operates alone and it is the team of festival artists working together as conduits for the people’s voices where reciprocity in all its forms becomes richer within the temporal festival moment. Working together festival artists can illuminate an attentive space for the artist and manifest aspects of a local community’s identity that invites in a reciprocal viewer and potentially transforms the space beyond the space itself. In order to achieve this festival artists take risks. They spend time making things happen on limited resources and bring together many diverse social institutions needing patience and commitment. Times can be testing for festival artists when balanced across pending funding
proposals, programming deadlines, bureaucracy, community expectations, seeking financial resource, artists needs and the always unexpected something that can happen at any moment.
This was especially the case during the 2010 festival program when mid way through the festival main day, my most trusted production manager accidentally inhaled a tiny piece of plastic, lodging into her air way. Not the most ideal situation for her, or for the festival. She was rushed to hospital, returning later that evening informed by the doctor that it was best not to continue working on the festival that night. Committed to the Yalukit Willam Ngargee’s developing principle of reciprocity and under strict instructions to be seated the whole time and not to talk, much, she was allowed to maintain some aspects of her role. Fortunately in that situation another reliable and trusted person stepped up to the duties and the festival continued on without the festival public being aware of the situation. This is one small example of what makes the reciprocity of festival artistry so collegial. We care for each other and we care for the people who entrust within us the safety and liberty of their best interests.
It could be argued that Australians have an obligation of indebtedness into the future with each other. What maybe needed to assist in better understanding our different approaches to reciprocity are how Indigenous festivals can be domains that challenge
and validate what we have come to know. Although Indigenous festivals are not the complete answer, they are a part of the overall solution and it is in-between the festival programs where the real work has to be achieved. The power of Indigenous festivals needs to live in our everyday relationships, conversations, bridging the distances between people and how we celebrate our part in those changing cultural marks we made on the day that we were here.
To conclude, Local Identity Global Focus has, in addressing the three research questions, shown ways in which an Indigenous festival can create spaces for
reciprocity and community identity; identified important elements that constitute an environmentally sustainable Indigenous metropolitan festival; and engaged in an extensive discussion of the local, cultural and socio-political conditions that impact on the programming and production of an Indigenous festival. This can serve to assist those who consider producing comparable festivals on a similar scale.