Creating an innovative past for the future

INNOVATION Week was recently celebrated in the Kiama Municipality as around 30 guests descended on the Boolarng Nangamai Aboriginal Art and Culture Centre in Gerringong, sampling the work of the districts Indigenous artists as well as trying locally grown indigenous produce.

Director of the Kiama Council Strategic and Commercial Services department, Chris Quigley, described the Art and Culture Centre as a showpiece for the Municipality saying he could not think of a single place in the district that is rocking like this place.

This centre is providing an innovative way of bringing Aboriginal culture to the rest of the community, he said.

This place is innovative in the sense that it is helping take skills that were used in the past and bring them into the future.

The centre is starting to play an increasing role in local tourism by attracting a lot of international and domestic visitors to Gerringong.

I think this is an absolutely fantastic place and I can only see it getting better as the word spreads what an amazing job the artists are doing here.

Local Aboriginal artist, Noel Lonesborough said the group was just beginning to achieve their goal of getting more exposure saying their involvement in schemes like innovation week would only help the group.

We are slowly getting there. We just keep plugging away, he said.

Days like today are great for us because we get to interact with more people and they can see what we are doing down here.

Our goal is to just keep going and hopefully get to a stage where we can live off our art and be totally independent.