We acknowledge all First Peoples of this land and celebrate their enduring connections to Country, knowledge and stories. We pay our respects to Elders and Ancestors who watch over us and guide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
We acknowledge all First Peoples of this land and celebrate their enduring connections to Country, knowledge and stories. We pay our respects to Elders and Ancestors who watch over us and guide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
Common Ground launches new truth-telling project Weaving Truths which centres First Nations voices through a truth-telling series and secondary education resource.
Common Ground First Nations is excited to launch a new truth-telling project Weaving Truths – created to encourage deeper understandings of First Nations truth-telling in homes, classrooms and workplaces across this continent and surrounding islands.
Weaving Truths brings a truth-telling series from three First Nations storytellers and Common Ground's first-ever education resource for secondary spaces.
Common Ground CEO and Wiradyuri, Ngemba and Paakantji woman Gemma Pol reflects on the project’s intentions and inspirations for collectively engaging with First Nations truth-telling.
"Weaving Truths is a project that truly centres First Nations voices to deepen engagement with truth-telling through story, and is our first-ever education resource for secondary spaces.”
“While Weaving Truths centres First Nations voices, it’s also a reminder that truth-telling is a collective responsibility and the onus can't just sit with our communities. The resource supports educators and students to unpack histories and challenge colonial narratives – creating space for shared understanding and meaningful change for generations to come."
In collaboration with three First Nations storytellers, the series presents diverse and unique approaches responding to truth-telling:
Truth-telling is a key content theme explored through the work of Common Ground and contributions from First Nations storytellers.
To encourage deeper engagement with First Nations truth-telling, Common Ground collaborated with Yuin education writer Kyarna Cruse to develop an education resource for high school students.
The education resource is created to support creative and critical thinking and learning through tailored activities connected to each storyteller project.
Yorta Yorta, Dja Dja Wurrung, Ngurai Illum Wurrung and Wiradjuri storyteller Neil Morris explores the power of sovereignty through Muluna (spirit), Yenbena (ancestors), Kaiela and Dungala (waterways), soil and skies through poem, spoken word, sounds and visuals in Seeds.
Bundjalung and Worimi storyteller Phoebe McIlwraith explores the power of in-language storytelling to meet the needs of a multilingual Australia through SPEAKINGTRUTH – a project that provides a founding report and supplementary posters in five languages: Arabic, Cantonese, Italian, Mandarin and Vietnamese.
Bundjalung and Gumbaynggirr storyteller Dakota Feirer explores the myth of flora nullius in conversation with Laura Briscoe, assistant curator and collections manager of the New York Botanical Garden Cryptogamic Herbarium.
Together, they uncover truths through a botanical specimen collected by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, as part of the Plants of Captain Cook’s First Voyage 1768-1771.
Flora Nullius is a concept similar to terra nullis, where control of naming plants suggests they weren’t known or didn’t have names before – irrespective of existing for millennia.
The Weaving Truths resource has been designed to support educators and students in engaging deeply with First Nations truth-telling through creative and critical thinking and learning.
It can be used flexibly across Years 7–12, and is mapped to the Australian Curriculum with links to English, Humanities and Social Sciences and The Arts.
Common Ground launched in 2019 with a website bringing together First Nations knowledge, cultures and stories. We have continued to evolve as a place of storytelling and education, to create opportunities for First Nations people to be authors on our terms.
We are 100% First Nations-led and staffed, creating content and educational resources. We work on unique and impactful projects that centre First Nations storytellers and communities in innovative ways, bringing knowledge as old as time into digital spaces.
Email: vanessa@commonground.org.au
We are a First Nations not-for-profit that exists to centre First Nations people, Country and truth-telling. We acknowledge all First Peoples of this land and celebrate their enduring connections to Country, knowledge and stories. We pay our respects to Elders and Ancestors who watch over us and guide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
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