The Two Fires Festival of Arts and Activism 2015. Various locations in Braidwood, NSW. Weekend of May 16-17, 2015. .
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The theme of the 2015 Two Fires Festival is "Nura nabu" - all cultures, all people, all land. Held every two years since 2005. the festival celebrates the legacy of poet and activist Judith Wright (1915-2000). This year, the traditional three streams reflecting Wright's prime concerns – literature, the environment and indigenous people and culture – will be merged and the festival will be held in the month that marks the 100th anniversary of her birth.
Julia Green, who is a member of the 2015 festival committee along with Gwenna Green (no relation) and Merrie Hamilton, says finances have been tight this year although several thousand dollars has been raised through a crowdfunding initiative.
An opening ceremony will be held on Saturday, May 16, at 9.30am and then at 10am the Dhurga Rock, a memorial to the Dhurga language people who are the traditional owners of the Braidwood district, will be dedicated in the main public park of Braidwood. The Dhurga Rock is a 900-million-year-old, three-tonne slab of Mintaro slate from South Australia about 3.5 metres long. On one side, stonecarver Ian Marr is inscribing it with words prepared by a local committee acknowledging the Aboriginal people who owned and cared for the land that is now the Braidwood district and expressing regret for the dispossession and dislocation of the district's Aboriginal people. The project was initially developed in discussion and consultation with Walbunga elder Uncle Max Harrison and his family and the Batemans Bay Local Aboriginal Land Council was also consulted. Many Braidwood groups, including local schools, the Catholic Social Justice group and the Braidwood Heritage Association, and individuals were also involved and supportive.
Local schoolchildren will work with Aboriginal elder Noel Butler and Marr to develop designs for the rock. Julia Green says, "It merges the streams of the festival – all three of them."
Among the other events of the festival will be the inaugural Judith Wright Lecture, to be given by NSW Deputy Opposition Leader and Wiradjuri woman, Linda Burney, and an art exhibition featuring local and regional Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists. There will also be a tree planting ceremony in the local Judith Wright community garden which, in an act of reconciliation, a local elder has asked be dedicated to the Braidwood pioneer families. Award-winning authors Bruce Pascoe and Jackie French will both present their recent books.
Green says there will also be an Ecological Poetry Panel chaired by Anne Elvey, the managing editor of Plumwood Mountain, an Australian journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.
"There will be three of them, reflecting on the human and other than human condition expressed through poetry."
And there will be a screening of the Jimmy Little Memorial concert that was on at the Sydney Opera House. Little was from Yuin country on the coast and his daughter, Frances Peters-Little, is keen to revisit the area, Green says.
For more details on events, visit the festival website: twofiresfestival.org.au.