Sharing stories at Garma Festival
By ABC Open Producer Will Tinapple, for ABC Mother Tongue, 5 Aug 2014.
The Garma Festival, held at the Gukula site just south of the townships of Nhulunbuy and Yirrkala in Northeast Arnhemland, is a unique celebration of people, culture, music and ideas.
It took fellow ABC Open Producer Charmaine Ingram and I almost two days to drive here across the top of the NT. We loaded up our vehicle with camping, production and workshop gear in Darwin, stopped by Katherine to host a 500 Words writing workshop and headed on up the almost 700km of dirt road called the Central Arnhem Highway.
Dusty but excited, we arrived at this beautiful bush site, ready to see what stories and people we might find. Setting up a marquee and an extra tent for gear, we were ready to meet the festival goers…
The last two days has been great. We’ve been meeting such a wide range of people and hearing so many different stories.
Wow, what a crazy and varied 48 hours!
We’ve been teaching people how to use tablets to shoot better pics and record video interviews. We’ve filmed traditional dance and performance. We had a lot of fun with a ‘landline’ phone that we set up for people to make phone calls from in the bush and to tell us about them. At a community feedback forum in Nuhulunbuy, we heard from a host of locals about the changes their town is going through and discussed ways that they might be able to share their stories on ‘Open’. I also got chance to collect a story about a group of young Yolngu men who are studying in Geelong. They journeyed home to Arnhem land to perform as a band for their families. And tonight, we are off to be a part of ABC’s Q & A program which is running live from the Garma site.
It’s been really great to finally meet Charmaine in the flesh, she’s one of our newest Open Producers.
Tomorrow we are off to Nhulunbuy High to run photography and video workshops. Stay tuned for more pictures, videos and stories from this Northern adventure shortly.
Over and out, from the Garma Festival!
