Combining technology and art to celebrate Indigenous stories | Yolonde Entsch | TEDxBrisbane
i'll never forget that day that i got off that plane in 2017. i had arrived in a remote aboriginal community that i had never been to before i am a social entrepreneur and it was my responsibility to engage with the women in this community to find out what activities that they would like to do that would give them meaning a sense of meaning and purpose it was during this time that i fell in love with this community and many of the beautiful people there jumiji is located near the border of queensland and the northern territory there's approximately 1200 people who live alongside the picturesque nicholson river and when you're down at the nicholson river it's not uncommon to see a crocodile swim by one of the other things that i love about jummaji is that most afternoons you'll see families fishing along the banks of the river whatever they catch becomes dinner that evening so when i got off that plane back in february 2017 i was feeling really concerned i was really worried i had never worked in an aboriginal community before and i didn't know if these ladies would like me if they would want to talk to me if i'd be able to build rapport and if they would share with me the types of activities that they were interested in doing and the truth be told our two worlds couldn't be any further apart but i needn't have worried as soon as i shared a project with the ladies about a work i was doing in papua new guinea where we were making care bags for women who lived in isolated villages these beautiful women in jummaji said to me yolandi that's something that we want to do we can't believe there are women less fortunate than us we want to make those bags it was while i was sitting around with the ladies that they were telling me that once upon a time dwimaji did have a pottery studio it was run by locals and it was an activity that people really enjoyed so i shared this with my client and asked if they would be prepared to invest in a cure and some clay and could i bring up a really well-known cans potter felicity berry to work with the community for a week they agreed felicity came up and in four and a half days over a hundred people came through our pottery doors and they made over 120 pieces of pottery like to me that was incredible but it really told me that there was a desire in the community for this type of activity unfortunately my client told me that there were no funds available to continue that project and i was really heartbroken because it was obvious to me that this was something that the community really enjoyed in december of 2018 i became aware of a funding opportunity and with the help of 78 dormitory residents we put in an application and we were successful so when we decided to open the pottery studio we wanted to keep it simple we wanted it to be easy we wanted to be able to engage the whole community regardless of their age regardless of how talented they thought they were so the goanna tile seemed like the easiest thing for us to do there's a direct connection back to jummaji because we do have goannas in domiji and i did learn that local folks often hunt gowanus and enjoy the goanna tails for a meal so we cut out templates we got people in they started cutting out the clay into the shape of goannas and then they would decorate them fast forward we now are making the most exquisite goanna tiles these tiles are part of a wave that we install in the community currently at the dumiji airport terminal when you land on a plane what you are greeted with are these exquisite tiles and as you walk through the terminal these goannas they cover the walls so that people in jomoji who have made these goannas who may be at the airport to greet their loved ones or to send their loved ones off on a flight have the opportunity to see their own work out in the public domain so this got us thinking how do we use technology to share their stories with the rest of the world well maybe with those people who are flying in and out of dumaji or tourists that are driving through and then felicity said to me that she'd come across a app that the very famous french photographer jr uses he had taken a mural of the prisoners in a prison in california and you download the app you click on one of the prisoners and then their story comes to life felicity said what if we were able to do that for our artists which was a fabulous idea so then we came across the low-cost easy to use technology that now we're all using regularly qr codes we're not the first to think of qr codes as a way of capturing stories but this allows us to share the stories of our artists in dumaji so you have a go on a wave if you've got a smartphone you scan the qr code and then one of the artists maybe two or three of the artists for that particular wave will share their story and a little bit about what life is like in georgie but can you imagine that our next goal is to be able to sell the goanna tiles on behalf of the artists what if you are living in the other side of the world and this beautiful parcel arrives which you open up and there's this exquisite unique handmade goanna and with it a qr code you scan that code and you are taken straight to domaji where you get to hear a little bit from the person who made that goanna i mean it's almost like being in an art gallery but you're doing it in your own home or in the community of dumaji this is one way that we have the opportunity to showcase emerging artists in this small remote aboriginal community it's a way we can pay our respects and honor our first nations people you