Three Yorta Yorta artists will have their designs weaved through the Munarra Centre for Regional Excellence as it emerges from its Shepparton building site for following generations to appreciate.
The centre is a collaboration between the Rumbalara Football Netball Club, Kaiela Institute and the University of Melbourne, and is being built on land leased by Greater Shepparton City Council.
It is funded by the Victorian Government and University of Melbourne, and will be a gateway to the $164 million Munarra campus.
The project aims to create education and employment pathways for Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, combining education, culture, the arts and sport to develop healthy people and communities and the leaders of tomorrow.
Now, Munarra Limited has announced it will collaborate with Kaiela Arts and Spacecraft Studio to incorporate unique designs into the centre’s construction.
“Building on a long continuum of artistic and cultural expression in the region, Kaiela Arts have experience in collaboration, including input into the cultural, architectural and furnishing designs of the Shepparton Art Museum,” Munarra Limited chairperson Travis Morgan said.
“Spacecraft also have a long history of partnering with communities across Australia to support translation and delivery of culturally significant projects into built and experiential form. We are delighted to be collaborating with both organisations to deliver Munarra’s cultural and artistic narrative.”
As it is built by Indigenous-owned construction company TVN On-Country on land adjacent to the football netball club, cultural representations will be integrated into the building.
“Together, Kaiela Arts, Spacecraft Studio and Munarra Limited will craft, design and deploy a cultural and artistic narrative across what is planned to be an ever-evolving living and breathing campus landscape,” deputy chair Kaiela Arts and strategic lead on the collaboration Belinda Briggs said.
The work of three artists, Glennys Briggs (Yorta Yorta, Taungurung and Wiradjuri), Suzanne Atkinson (Yorta Yorta) and Norm Yackaduna Stewart (Kwat Kwat), will be weaved into construction materials under the collaboration.
“It's allowed us to tell our stories that come from where we grew up, which is Cummeragunja (mission), so the stories are coming through the family groups from Cummeragunja to here,” Mrs Briggs said.
“So we’re sort of linking the present here with the past of Cummeragunja and the future.”
Ms Atkinson was unable to attend the celebration of the collaboration, but Mr Stewart said he was excited to be working with his fellow artists and hoped the Munarra Centre would become a signature building for the region.
“That’d be fantastic for the community, (as) I see it, and for the region,” he said.
Mrs Briggs said she would like to see the centre become not only a symbol of First Nations pride and achievements, but unity with the broader Goulburn Valley community.
“We’d like to share it too with the local people of Shepparton,” she said.
“So hopefully, by showcasing what we have, it will bring in the wider community to us. So we can then tell them the stories of where we can come from and share that with them.”
The Munarra Centre for Regional Excellence is expected to be completed in February 2024.