Rhoda Roberts AO our host is Bundjalung from the Widjabul peoples whose unceded lands cross the northern rivers of NSW including the sweet water mountain streams, the rainforest and lush valleys of Nimbin. It was during the 1970 with a new wave of visitors seeking a sanctuary and alternative life that change began to occur. A new dialogue, transpired and there was an interest of the continued language our families spoke, the Bundjalung and their knowledge of the land management, use of plants and there was a desire to have an awareness of the deep connection to Country. It changed the region. For Rhoda was the first Aboriginal to host a prime-time current affairs program in the 1980’s and has continued to work cross the arts and cultural field. The creative sector is a platform that is vital and enables the valuing and fostering of inherited birthrights, enables those uncomfortable conversations and encourages new expressions.

  Djon is one of the country’s most senior arts curators and educators, and a celebrated foundational figure in the criticism and exhibition of contemporary Aboriginal art. 

The 2020 Red Ochre Award recipient Djon has held many senior curatorial positions at the National Museum of Australia, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales and Campbelltown Art Centre. The National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) in Osaka, Japan and Research Professor in the Department of Social Research University of NSW. 

He Joins us each show, as our cultural arts appraiser for our Object segment form the quirky, ancient and unknown objects our guests are invited to bring-whatchamacallit.

Stan Grant to many he is the global man reporting the war stories, the risk taker where danger is in each mortar fired, to others he is the author who talks of Country where success is measured very differently. He is the father who remembers the influences of writers such as James Baldwin, it helped to shape his moral compass.

Join us on thew winding path of Stan’s travels, his Country and the things that he has picked up along the way.

Mark Olive (aka ‘The Black Olive’) is one of Australis First Indigenous Five-star chefs and he has a global following with his The Outback Cafe series. Pioneering the use of native foods in fine Cuisine.

The restaurant Dabpeto -meaning water plenty -is the original name for Daptop. Many know of this town for greyhound racing but with the opening Dabpeto, one of the few Aboriginal run restaurants, providing local employment, Mark had big dreams, Covid hit, and life has been very different for Mark but the passion for fusing native food and culture with contemporary lifestyle cooking is growing. He wants every Australian to experience what we have that is so unique, and don’t get him started on superfoods.

Rhyan Clapham comes from the world’s first engineers and stone masons, whose knowledge of physics and water ecology is profound. It’s a birthright he is proud of, the Murrawarri territories straddle the border of the states of New South Wales and Queensland.

Dobby is a recipient of the Peter Sculthorpe Music Fellowship and has composed Pitara Yaan Muruwarikiand a new chamber music offering. For Dobby it’s also about language reclamation in the music. His work across many genres of music has seen him deemed as one of the new wave of Aboriginal creatives.

The Barkindji people of the Darling, call their freshwater River the Barka, translated it is mother. Chloe Quayle uses the stage name Barkaa the relates to her matriarchal connections. Her debut single “For My Tittas" put her on the map and was a renewed reclamation of  the language and the dance,  once so feared, it was outlawed. Now on a fast and steady incline as a critical contributor to Australia’s musical landscape. 

Barkaa shares times of a former life. Through a teenage pregnancy, incarnation and fuelled by a haze of drugs, she was left empty like her Barka, but her life changed and her music flows with the stories for women. 

Ziggy Ramo is becoming one of the most important artists in the country, releasing a new powerful statement, reworking Paul Kelly’s ‘From Little Things Big Things Grow’

With no tours happening during Covid, He has developed his second album, and the soon to be released non-fiction book, both titled Human. The book, in his own words, is “part memoir, part history and part cultural reckoning. “Being stuck inside the house has led me to become delusional enough to think that writing a book is a good idea,” Ramo wrote on Instagram, “the ultimate freedom to present my ideas in a way that is accessible for all”.