Dhiraamalang: Wesfarmers First Nations Arts Leadership Program

Cultural Development

Cultural development is a key component of the leadership program, which has been designed to assist, elevate and instill foundational skills and understanding in a cultural context for our future leaders in the sector.

As First Nations people we want to delve into difficult conversations as the first steps to changing the way we do things. This decolonising cultural competency workshop re-humanises First Nations peoples and compels us to add our valuable knowledge, experience and diversity.

Cultural development focuses on:

• on-Country experiences
• yarning with local Elders in the Community
• how to decolonise your work; and
• cultural competency in the arts sector.

This introduction to best practice community collaboration and ways of working with First Peoples explores ways of working that are present, or perhaps absent, in the arts sector.

Professional Development

The professional development component of this program has been uniquely tailored for First Nations arts professionals in a creative arts context.

This initiative has been designed to cultivate leadership skills and deepen understanding of front and back-of-house operations in museums and galleries, ensuring First Nations arts professionals are well-equipped to navigate the dynamic landscape of national and international arts institutions.

Through a blend of immersive cultural learning experiences, hands-on workshops and mentorship, this program empowers First Nations arts professionals to enhance their strategic and critical thinking, operational expertise and leadership skills.

Participants learn more about themselves and their Communities, and gain the skills to become confident leaders.

'There's something so deeply valuable and nourishing about being in a community. I think as Indigenous people, there's few things more valuable than hearing stories from our old people and there's something very grounding about starting the Program in a way that allows us all to become comfortable … the Wiradjuri Elders on Country have done such an exceptional job at holding that space for us.'

Juanita Kelly-Mundine, 2019 Alumni and 2021 Program Mentor

'I think there's always an importance of two-way learning and why being on Country is so different learning towards being in the museum space of learning, or the galleries space of learning. ​

When you're actually out on Country, you see those people who slipped through the cracks, the local community members who need that direction in their life, that maybe the arts can guide them through alternate pathways.​

And for us as arts workers to be seeing just how diverse the local community is in places like Wagga Wagga. And you really need your eyes opened sometimes because you forget that living in the cities, that there's a real powerful need for arts projects out on Country, where we can in some ways, connect better with the community members that we work with and give them the tools that they need to inspire the next generations of future arts leaders to come through.​

That's definitely something that I've learned just in the few days that we've been here and something that I really want to take back to my workplace in that sense, is outreach isn't just going out and asking for information that we put on a wall label back in the museum. Outreach is actually building those personal relationships and networks and sharing out on Country. How we build those networks ourselves and understanding the importance of that because it's only through working together outside in a safe-space where we've worked with community members who have invited us to be here, that we truly get that sense of what it means to connect the arts with the broader story of modern Australia as we move forward.'

Matt Poll, 2021 Participant