In 2017, students in the Year 6 class at Ltyentye Apurte Catholic School participated in the Gilimbaa’s ‘Connecting Waves’ project. Author Dr Anita Heiss and visual artist, Elisa Jane Carmichael (Leecee), worked with the students writing and illustrating their lives in Santa Teresa (Ltyentye Apurte) in Central Australia.
Students wrote about their families, their friends and their community. We learnt about each student’s special or sacred place, their proudest or happiest moment and discover who is their hero via the letter each student writes to them. Each student drew a Picasso style self-portrait and expanded their writing further with illustrations that to quote visual artist Leecee Carmichael ‘burst with colour’ and brought alive their stories of their lives in Ltyentye Apurte.
The end result is ‘Apmere Atyenhe Ltyentye Apurte – My Home Santa Teresa’ a collection of biographical style writing and vivid artwork that reminds us of the pleasures we can take in the simple things of life – family, friends, heroes, happy moments and special places.
Santa Teresa, or Ltyentye Apurte as it is known to its Eastern Arrente community, is 90 kms SW of Alice Springs that was established as a Catholic mission in the 1950s. It is still predominately a Catholic based community and in 2019 became the first Indigenous community to be awarded the ‘Australian Sustainable Communities Tidy Towns Award’ successfully winning four separate categories in the Award.
Anita Heiss, a Wiradjuri woman from central New South Wales, is an academic and author. Visual artist Elisa (Leecee) Carmichael is a Ngughi woman from Quandamoka country (Moreton Bay), Moorgumpin and Minjerribah, Moreton and Stradbroke Island.
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
