Faces of Mowanjum - Mowanjum TAFE Youth Program 2006

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Viewers are advised that this gallery contains images and names of people who are now deceased. These images are displayed with thanks to the families of those represented. If you have any concerns or queries about images displayed here please email us .

The Mowanjum TAFE Youth Program was set up in 2006 by the Derby Campus of Kimberley TAFE (Western Australia) to engage young people from the Mowanjum Community (about 15 kilometres from Derby up the Gibb River Road) who were not attending school or working in cultural arts activities using digital media. The target group was young people aged 15-20, with a focus on kids of school age (the school leaving age in Western Australia recently changed to 17 years old).

The Mowanjum TAFE Youth Program 2006 ran for 10 weeks, with activities run in and around the community 4 days a week. Young people worked together to make an exhibition for display in the new Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre , which opened in late 2006. The group had been invited by the New Orleans Neighborhood Story Project to send an exhibition to New Orleans, so the exhibition was developed to be able to travel, and was exhibited at Xavier University in New Orleans in January 2007.

The Faces of Mowanjum Exhibition opened in early November 2006 and was the first exhibition to be held in the new art centre. The exhibition was devised and made by participants in the Mowanjum TAFE Youth Program, and included a digital slide show of over 200 photographic portraits of Mowanjum community members, large banners featuring black and white portraits of community elders (generously printed by the WA museum), and A1 colour posters made by each member of the Youth Program. A large map painted by Leah Umbagai and Youth Program participants, made for the exhibition, still hangs in the foyer of the Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre.

Participants in the program included Anita Umbagai, Mary-Lou Divilii, Cassidy Charles, Jeanine Numandumah, Katie Numandumah, Edmund Ngerdu, Jenna Dolby, Radki Park, Carmen Mungulu, Crystal Oobagooma, Deserea Wungundin and Serena Oobagooma. The 2006 program was developed and coordinated by Leah Umbagai and Maya Haviland.

All images © 2006 MASWAC (Mowanjum Artists Spirit of the Wandjina Aboriginal Corporation)