On Friday 7 November the Yarnin Project will announce it has preserved invaluable and timeless collections of indigenous oral history from communities across Victoria.
The collaboration of Victoria's Aboriginal communities with Open Channel and Yarnin Pictures documents Aboriginal Elders stories while simultaneously training Aboriginal youth in the art of film making.
The short films will be available on a new website to be launched on Friday: www.yarnin.net. You can also watch an introductory video of the project here.
Each Elder’s story provides a valuable political history of Victorian Aboriginal communities, and reinforces the wider range of issues and diversity that make up Aboriginal Victoria.
Yarnin was conceived by Bobby Nicholls, Rebecca McLean and John Harding who commented “Yarnin is one of the only cultural projects that engages on an intimate level with every Aboriginal community in Victoria. One of the benefits of this engagement is that these communities are provided with the opportunity to educate themselves about each of their histories. This website is the catalyst for that, providing valuable information on the similarities, connections and differences of the many nations that make up Victoria.”
Open Channel Executive Director Marc Gracie said “Open Channel is proud to be a part of the Yarnin Project – a significant film project which serves to both preserve our important Aboriginal cultural heritage for future generations, and also to train the next generation of indigenous filmmakers here in Victoria.”
Supported by Film Victoria, the Australian Government Office of the Arts, Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, this is the first time Aboriginal land rights in Victoria has been fully explored in a concise and detailed media project.
The Yarnin Project provides a collection of audio-visual history that can be used for a wide variety of purposes. The short films have the potential to be presented in schools, festivals, community events, and in local government as a cultural awareness program.