Garigarang Garrigaru: Saltwater Cloud

(Dharawal Language/Eora, Sydney)

Welcome to the museum's web experience dedicated to sharing everything we do with First Nations culture and storytelling.

Garigarang Garrigaru is a curated pathway through the Museums 30-year history of engagement with First Nations Australia.

Its aim is to acknowledge many contributions by Individuals, communities, staff, and the museum itself to being a reservoir of knowledges relating to the Museums custodianship and ongoing responsibilities to freshwater and saltwater. This web experience explores this through the museum’s collections, research, education, featured artists including both past and new exhibitions.

The seascapes of Aboriginal worlds are at the beginning of many of Aboriginal Australia’s deepest memories.  Trade networks of coastal materials like shells and bone traverse into the heart of central Australia.

Stories of the formation of Australia’s coastlines predate the existence of the Zenedth Kes (Torres Strait Islands) from a time when people could walk from Cape York through to what is knowkn today as Papua New Guinea. They predate the erosion of the connection of Lutrawita (Tasmania) to mainland Australia.

Rivers, coastlines, and Islands provided sustenance and spaces for the nurturing of culture to many generations of First nations Australia.