Indigenous Excellence BILLABONGS not SILOS
La Trobe University and the City of Greater Bendigo acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live, learn, work and play on the Dja Dja Wurrung Country. The Djaara People have cared for this Country for over 65,000 years, performing age-old ceremonies of celebration, initiation, and renewal. We recognise their living culture, their ongoing connection to Country, and their unique role in the life of this region. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and acknowledge the deep knowledge systems they continue to share, ensuring Community, Culture, and Country continue to thrive.
We are committed to creating meaningful opportunities, grounded in reciprocity, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples through learning, research, and respectful, enduring partnerships.
We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal People.
Billabongs not Silos brings a focus to the intersection of education and health for Indigenous children and youth. The La Trobe Rural Health School and School of Education are committed to promoting Indigenous leadership and voices to bring attention to Indigenous excellence in these fields.
Our vision is to encourage and facilitate Indigenous leadership in areas of Indigenous health and education, and to build opportunities for non-Indigenous researchers and practitioners to learn from Indigenous excellence for greater success for children and young people.
• Promote health, education and wellbeing for First Nations youth.
• Share strength-based practice to empower First Nations communities.
• Highlight La Trobe’s role in thought leadership and networking.
• Amplifies voices towards Indigenous Excellence in Health and Education.
The Billabongs not Silos initiative is a collaborative project between La Trobe Rural Health School and the School of Education, bringing together stakeholders from First Nations organisations, education, health, and local communities. This initiative champions sovereignty, highlights successful practices, and fosters dialogue to address the challenges and opportunities for First Nations youth in achieving educational and health excellence.
The exhibition at the Capital Theatre and this publication have been funded by the City of Greater Bendigo as part of its ongoing advocacy for arts and health programs and projects.
...the heart of storytelling and cultural expression...
At La Trobe Rural Health School, we are committed to strengthening partnerships between health and education, ensuring that First Nations voices, leadership, and knowledge are at the forefront of our work.
Billabongs not Silos is a powerful platform to celebrate Indigenous excellence in health and education, highlighting stories, experiences, and successful models of care that empower First Nations communities. Through this initiative, we seek to deepen engagement, amplify Indigenous-led solutions, and foster a stronger, more connected future for all.
This art exhibition reflects the heart of storytelling and cultural expression, honouring the resilience, creativity, and perspectives of First Nations artists and youth. The 2025 event calendar builds on the momentum of the previous two years, offering opportunities to connect, learn, and engage in meaningful discussions about the intersections of health, education, and wellbeing.
We are proud to partner with the School of Education, the City of Greater Bendigo, and First Nations organisations to bring these events to life. As we move forward, our goal remains clear: ensuring that First Nations knowledge and strengths are embedded across our teaching, research, and workforce development initiatives.
I invite you to explore, reflect, and take part in this ongoing journey of learning and collaboration. Thank you for your commitment and for being part of this important conversation.
Professor Jane Mills Dean, La Trobe Rural Health School
At La Trobe University’s School of Education, we are deeply committed to nurturing vital connections between education and health for First Nations children and youth. The Billabongs not Silos initiative ensures Indigenous voices, leadership, and knowledge systems are at the heart of our educational approach.
This collaboration with the La Trobe Rural Health School creates a space where knowledge flows freely like water in a billabong—sustaining and connecting our shared work. By moving beyond traditional silos, we embrace a holistic understanding that recognizes the inseparable nature of learning, wellbeing, and cultural identity.
Billabongs not Silos celebrates Indigenous excellence in educational practice, amplifying successful approaches that centre First Nations perspectives. Through this initiative, we support strength-based frameworks that empower communities and create environments where Indigenous children and young people can thrive.
...knowledge flows freely like water in a billabong...
The upcoming events calendar provides meaningful opportunities for dialogue, knowledge exchange, and relationship building across sectors. Each event honours Indigenous leadership and creates spaces where all participants can learn from First Nations wisdom and innovation.
We are honoured to collaborate with the La Trobe Rural Health School, the City of Greater Bendigo, and our First Nations partners. Our shared vision drives us toward educational practices that authentically embed Indigenous knowledge throughout our teaching, research, and community engagement.
I warmly invite you to participate in these events, to listen deeply, and to contribute to this ongoing journey of transformation. Together, we can create systems that truly honour First Nations sovereignty and support Indigenous excellence.
Professor Joanna Barbousas
PVC, Education, Impact and Innovation Dean, School of Education
...important foundations for starting conversations...
Art and Culture are inseparable. They are linked to identity and our expressions of belonging to family, community and Country. Art is also story. Story that emerges from and responds to our experiences. For many of the pieces in this exhibition, these are stories of connecting with Country.
Art has also been a key part of our resistance to colonial structures. So, it serves multiple purposes. It is a demonstration of our resilience and our cultural selves. These are important foundations for starting conversations about the role of education and health.
The focus of Billabongs not Silos is the interconnection of education and health. In particular, we are exploring and showcasing Indigenous excellence; success that is founded on Indigenous leadership. For us as Indigenous people, art offers story as a starting point for showcasing excellence.
Thank you to the artists who have helped to launch the suite of events for 2025. We will continue to honour the stories you have shared with us as we focus our attention on settings of education and health.
Scott Alterator Director, Indigenous Futures School of Education
La Trobe University is committed to strengthening our support for Indigenous scholarships by decolonising the curriculum and nurturing the next generation of Indigenous leaders across various fields. Billabongs not Silos reinforces these principles and continues La Trobe’s long tradition of authentically partnering with Indigenous communities aiming to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to determine their own futures, support the stewardship of Indigenous knowledges, and nurture collaborative partnership.
This process is designed to benefit all students and staff at La Trobe, informing everyone about the dignity and beauty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. The collaborative discussions developed through Billabongs not Silos positions a culturally safe practice of learning and discovery and commits to supporting social change through education and building generational capacity.
Through Billabongs not Silos, La Trobe is dedicated to working with Victorian Indigenous communities to achieve the goals outlined in the Indigenous strategy. With campuses across the lands of numerous traditional owners and an increasing cohort of students learning across Australia and the world. Guided by our First Nations communities and in collaboration
...dignity and beauty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
with La Trobe academics and their industry peers, we will develop collaborative understandings through student support, research, and teaching, ensuring that these efforts inform best practice guided though Indigenous guidance, histories and cultures.
Through maintaining the values of our Indigenous Strategy, Billabongs not Silos is committed to supporting social change and creating a process where Indigenous leadership, self-determination, Indigenous knowledges, and social justice thrive for the benefit of Indigenous communities and students, and highlights best practice through informed, collaborative understanding.
Michael Donovan
Pro Vice Chancellor Indigenous La Trobe University
Claire-Suzanne Kearns
Djab Wurrung
Whisperings of the Wannon
Pencil, paint, ink on paper
Whisperings of the Wannon is a textured, abstract artwork that blends earthy tones with deep reds, oranges, and soft whites. Layers of paint and torn elements create depth, evoking a sense of land and history. The organic forms and raw textures hint at a connection to nature and ancestral whispers.
Dan Mitchell (Shaw)
Whadjuk Ballardong Yued Noongar
Buckrabanyule Burn 2023
Acrylic on ply board
I painted this after a day on Djandak (Djaara Country) at Buckrabanyule participating in Djandak Wi (Cultural Burn) with community elders and leaders from the Djaara. It was a privilege to be welcomed into this cultural practice in such a sacred space. I will never forget this day.
Janet Bromley Art
Yorta Yorta
Weaving
Janet Bromley is a Yorta Yorta artist with a Masters of Visual Art. Janet’s art practice uses traditional methods of gathering and weaving, working with recycled clothing, plastic waste, found objects, and bush materials to create weavings and sculptures. Her work tells stories through both small pieces and large installations. She often runs workshops alongside her exhibitions to encourage people to think about their environment.
Kyra Allen
Dja Dja Wurrung
Journey Within Acrylic
The warm hues of the land pulsed beneath Marli as she sat cross-legged, her body bathed in the soft glow of dawn. She closed her eyes, feeling the ancient rhythms of her ancestors coursing through her veins. The Dreaming whispered in the wind, guiding her back to herself.
For years, Marli had wandered away from her roots, lost in the noise of a world that moved too fast. But today, she returned to Country, to the stories woven into the ochre earth. She traced the songlines with her breath, her spirit reconnecting with the sacred energy around her.
White dots and lines appeared in her mind’s eye, symbols of her people’s wisdom. The sun, her guardian, shone above, warming her heart. The rivers of her lineage flowed strong, cleansing her pain, making space for new beginnings.
She exhaled. The journey to healing had begun.
Bendigo District Aboriginal Co-operative
People big and small from the Banya room at djimbaya
My Painting
Poster and acrylic paint and natural resources on canvas
“I’m going to paint my Dja Dja Wurrung Land, my Kinder. This is the Kinder and this is the chicken house and this, look here, this is our Kinder tree do you see it?”
Children spoke, drew, and painted about connection, not just connection to the environment and to their peers and educators, but to their families and communities. For them djimbaya was a place where their educational lives (for want of a better word) and their family and personal lives intersected- there was no separation. Children associated family members who had never been at djimbaya, even family members who were deceased with the space.
Bendigo District Aboriginal Co-operative
People big and small from the Banya room at djimbaya
All of us
Poster and acrylic paint and natural resources on canvas
“My friends and cousins are here, my mum and my brother. My dad is here too, in the sky. I have to draw his moustache; he always had a moustache”
Justin Lindner Palawa
Broken
In my mid 30’s, I found myself in a dark place for a number of years. I occupied that space because I had lost the ability to trust in myself. When I started to heal, I often went to the Ocean for calm. I was sitting in the sand one day and reading a book about Japanese Kintsugi (meaning - Joining or repairing with Gold). There was a quote at the start of the book that resonated with me.
“If we choose to embrace our struggles and repair ourselves with love, we become more beautiful for having been broken”
This artwork tells my story of healing. Drawing strength from Culture, the ocean (my favourite place), and some beautiful words that I read at the right time.
Life can feel heavy sometimes, but we can always seek out moments of clarity and mend ourselves with love, culture and connection.
Acrylic on canvas
Justin Lindner
Palawa
Coming Home
Acrylic on canvas
As a young man, I was always told to focus on building a career, buying a house, settling down. Every time I changed jobs, moved house, State or Country, I would beat myself up for wasting time. Feeling disappointed in myself that I didn’t have a clear goal in life. I was about 38 when I felt I had any sense of what home meant. I realised home for me was a sense of knowing and understanding who I was.
If I could give my 18-year-old self advice. I would say, do all the things and don’t worry about time. You are exactly where you need to be right now, so live life without regret.
When you finally come home, you will understand that your home is a combination of all your experiences, a mix of all the colours.
Be present in the moment, it will all make sense in time.
Fight Like a Girl 1
Digital artwork printed on canvas with acrylic paint
This collection of 2 artworks explores my journey in Martial Arts - Muay Thai as a Women and First Nations person. I started training Muay Thai for exercise and fitness, to learn how to protect and defend myself physically and to improve my mental and emotional health. I had no idea that this activity, that I one day just decided to participate in, would impact my life so deeply. I have flat feet, one a collapsible arch and the other no arch at all, and short ligaments in my legs that wrap around my legs rather than run straight up and down like most, I spent my developmental years in a lot of pain and found physical exercise incredibly uncomfortable. I grew up thinking that exercise would always be painful and traumatic for me, and I mourned that quite deeply. I started Muay Thai in the first lockdown of the pandemic through PT’s as a way to get out of the house and overcome some of the challenges of being in isolation, one session in and I was hooked. I was incredibly surprised at how un-painful it was for me, and the physical practice just worked for my body. As I learnt more about Muay Thai and the culture around it, I connected with the art of Muay Thai through my cultural lens as a First Nations person and felt my ancestor and spiritual warrior, Mannalargena, with me whenever I was training, I like to think that I was connecting to ancient wisdom through the physical practice of kickboxing. On top of feeling strong within my body and culture, I felt empowered as a woman, knowing that I now had tools to use to defend myself and protect myself from harm if I were ever put in the position.
Michellie Jade Charvat Creations
Palawa
Fight Like a Girl 2
Digital
Michellie Jade Charvat Creations
Palawa
artwork printed on canvas with acrylic paint
Michellie Jade Charvat Creations
Palawa
Sharing Wisdom
Acrylic on canvas
Sharing Wisdom was the winning artwork in a 2022 Latrobe University competition that asked for artworks to explore libraries as meeting places through a First Nations lens. This artwork reflects my experiences as a university student and explores how I found community in libraries as meeting places. There are many symbolic elements, but the focal point is the big tree abundant in green leaves and its deep roots, this tree represents us, you and me and our connections to each other, cultural heritage, and country. We all have a culture, an identity and knowledge sharing, learning, it is all a part of who we are, it’s what shapes us. It is through our continued sharing of knowledge and engaging in community, healing our wounds and the trauma, teaching our young ones and being part of the change that we, as First Nations people, have survived and continue to thrive.
Megan Kennedy Barkindji
Thoughts of Dreams
a Freedom Through Dreamtime written piece
Scattered rains of pain
See the sun shine again
Please try to understand
Our culture can’t be tamed
I won’t try to tone it down
Our love of land found all around
We won’t respond to racist
In the end it’s just basic
We don’t bite back in spite or hate
We link our arms and share our plate
Follow the oldest culture in the world
Through our dreamtime boys and girls
Through the stars our ancestors lay
As our next generations path the way
Don’t fear what you do not know
Knowledge is power, the way to grow
Share your stories of hope and plight
To rebuild history, no need to fight
We ask ourselves what’s wrong and right
Positive steps together to find our light
I know it’s scary and sometimes hard
But think of the lost ones torn apart
We cannot change it or go back in time
Acknowledge the truth through book or rhyme
Walk together as brothers and sisters
Walk so hard that your feet get blisters
It’s a small price to pay to path the way
For our next generation to find peace in their day
We cannot blame those standing here
They were not there as I shed a tear
The pain and the blood spills down the line
I hope unity is found amongst us and found in time
For in our journey we have just one life
Speak your mind even in strife
But if it is something hurtful and cruel
Remove that toxicity find better tools
Remember many little eyes watching our step
Rip my ancestors, may they rest
Pay your homage to those we lost
Holding spite is something we should toss
So one beautiful day on this testing land
May we share may we care for every man
These days many are cold on the streets
However Unity I found, no racism in the heartbeats
Be grateful and gracious for what we got
But know the blood of every ancestor shot
We are walking every step on this blood land
Forgiveness can happen if you can join hands.
BILLABONGS not SILOS
Activities for 2025
Art Exhibition Collaboration
An art exhibition in partnership with a community organisation, featuring stories and works by local First Nations artists.
28 April - 10 June.
Capital Theatre Bendigo
Art Exhibition Launch Event
An art exhibition in partnership with a community organisation, featuring stories and works by local First Nations artists.
13 May
Capital Theatre Bendigo
Sorry Day Sunset
This ceremony acknowledges our families, friends and Ancestors affected by the Stolen Generations. All-Community event.
26 May
Ironbark Centre
La Trobe University Bendigo
Community Excellence Visit Semester 1
A guided visit for students and staff to a local First Nations organisation demonstrating excellence in health and education.
6 June
Worawa Aboriginal College 60-80 Barak Lane
Healesville
Professor Benny Wilson
Keynote Speaker – Semester 1
A proud Jagera man and national leader in Indigenous education.
Professor Wilson brings decades of expertise in Indigenising curriculum, narrative-based learning, and place-based education. His keynote will explore the intersections of Indigenous health, education, and wellbeing, setting a powerful tone for the conference.
19 June
Circular lecturer theatre and Gallery space La Trobe University Bendigo
Community Excellence Visit
Semester 2
A guided visit for students and staff to a local First Nations organisation demonstrating excellence in health and education.
8 September
Bendigo District Aboriginal Co-operative 119 Prouses Rd North Bendigo
Dr Jill Gallagher AO
Keynote Speaker – Semester 2
A proud Gunditjmara woman and CEO of VACCHO
Dr Gallagher is a respected Aboriginal leader and will draw on her decades of experience to continue the Billabongs not Silos conversation drawing from her leadership in Aboriginal health. As CEO of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO), she will share her experiences advocating for culturally safe and communityled approaches to Indigenous wellbeing.
6 November
Circular lecturer theatre and Gallery space La Trobe University Bendigo
Billabongs not Silos Showcase
A full-day symposium including yarning circles, case studies, guest speakers, and a showcase of First Nations-led initiatives.
7 November Ironbark Centre La Trobe University Bendigo
Bookings and further information: events.humanitix.com/host/la-trobe-ruralhealth-school
Catalogue design: Jacqui Lynch, Preloaded Design
