Grant acknowledges Kaurna Country

Over 60 new pieces of stobie pole art have been installed across the City of Burnside, with the artworks provided by local schools and groups through the assistance of a community grant.

Devised by resident Natania Huff, the aim of her community grant application was to beautify local streets, involve local youth in an engaging project and provide wider education around Kaurna culture on the path to reconciliation.

Each artwork depicts images of native plants from the Burnside area, as well as the Kaurna names for them and an acknowledgement of our place on Kaurna Country.

Natania said she reached out to a variety of schools and groups to assist her in creating the artworks and bringing the project to life.

“I was really thrilled with the positive feedback I got from five our of our local schools, ranging from kindergarten through to high schools, as well as three groups – two Girl Guide groups and a local Scout group,” Natania said.

“It’s definitely been very much supported by the younger people and those that are working with younger people in our area, and I think it’s going to get conversations starting about reconciliation, about nature, about language.”

The community grant provided to Natania covered the expenses of materials including the wooden panels, paint and paintbrushes, allowing the schools and groups involved to participate without incurring any costs.

Once the painted panels were completed they were collected by the Shed on Conyngham Street, where Shed participants applied several coats of clear varnish to protect the panels from external weather conditions. The varnished panels were then collected by the depot team who installed them across various streets in Beulah Park Kensington, Kensington Park and Leabrook.

The final step was for City of Burnside staff to travel to each artwork to photograph them, add a QR code and create an online interactive map matching their locations. By photographing these QR codes, you can find out more about the specific artwork, including who painted it and the significance of the plant depicted.

Marryatville Primary School teacher Lyn Kaeding said her students were excited to be involved in the project and contribute to a community project.

“We were really lucky to have a parent like Natania come to the school and offer us an opportunity to be more involved in the local community – to go beyond the school gates, to do something that helped link cross curricular work so students were able to have a better understanding of Kaurna culture,” Lyn said.

“All three Year 5 classes participated in putting together drafts in a design phase for the different species of plants. This meant that every student had an opportunity to share their ideas and their creativity and from that we chose one example for each of the plant species to go to the final stage of painting.”

To assist with translations from English to Kaurna language, Natania worked with Kaurna woman and Marryatville Primary School teacher Sherrell Dyer who is a member of Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi (KWK). KWK is the leading group in South Australia dedicated to Kaurna language revitalisation and maintenance and provides translations from English.

Sherrell said she was pleased to work with Natania on the project and bolster student learning around Kaurna culture.

“Natania’s opened up a whole page of wonderful learning and I’ve really enjoyed talking with her about the project because it brought back memories of me growing up and learning lots of my culture and sharing that with her,” Sherrell said.

For Natania, Kaurna representation has been paramount throughout the project.

“KWK have kindly been involved with giving permissions for both the names of plants as well as the wording of “We’re on Kaurna Country” in Kaurna language as well,” she said.

“It’s been really important to me to, at all times, put their voices into this project and to ensure that they consider it’s a respectful reflection of their culture and what’s important to them in the path to reconciliation as well.”

If you want to find the locations of these stunning new artworks, Council will upload an online interactive map to the City of Burnside website in the coming weeks. Keep an eye on our social media pages for further information.