With a packed program of music, art, dance, ceremony and stories that celebrate the strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture, there was something for everyone at this year’s NAIDOC in the North family event. Ginninderry was delighted to be part of the day with members of the team and local Aboriginal artist, the fabulous Narelle Hutchings facilitating a Painting Stones activity.

With our coldest weekend on record in fifteen years, those brave enough to head outdoors were pleased to find the event had moved to the Gungahlin Library Conference Room. The Painting Stones table proved to be extremely popular with people of all ages, who put their creative skills to use painting a take-home stone and another for a future community art installation at Ginninderry.

Walking around the event it was fabulous to see creativity in action by Canberra’s Aboriginal community, from incredibly intricate dot paintings, roving performances to painting and bush medicine – the strawberry gum lip balm smelled divine!

It was great to meet so many enthusiastic community members over the course of the day and take back to Ginninderry, four trays of beautiful painted river stones to store for our future art work. Thank you to all who participated – we now have a wonderful collection of interesting and creatively designed stones and we can’t wait to bring the community together again to create a public art work with them! Stay tuned for details.