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 The ‘Planting Seeds’
workshop program was devised by Richard Frankland and Jon Staley in
2003 and has already become an inspiring tool in helping to support
individuals and communities to look at ‘reconciliation’
in a new and powerful light. The feedback from the workshops in
2003 has been overwhelming and the program has begun to attract
national and international interest for the powerful and inspiring
way in which it uses the arts to deal with cross-cultural awareness
issues. A number of people have reflected that the program develops
and takes to a new level the cultural awareness work pioneered by
the ‘blue eyes, brown eyes’ program.
Using juggling balls labelled with both mainstream and
indigenous issues and values the workshops offerparticipants a new
way of seeing indigenous and non indigenous relations in this
country. In making visible the extra ‘invisible’ balls
indigenous individuals and communities have had to juggle in the
face of colonialism the workshops create a picture that can help
all Australians begin to heal the wounds of history. In a manner
that confronts prejudice but not personality the activities in the
workshop allow people to see where they fit in relation to
reconciliation and subsequently there own and their nations
identity. In exposing the ‘partial filters’ through
which indigenous communities are often viewed, portrayed and judged
the activities open people’s eyes to the broader picture and
in so doing help to remove the filters.
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