You are invited to come celebrate the koort and kaartadjin of Place Names in Walyalup.

Presented in partnership with Community Arts Network, Place Names Walyalup is an exhibition that explores significant Noongar place names in Fremantle. Individual artworks by Noongar community come together in a large scale map that holds memory, language, sites and stories.

Working collaboratively with Noongar Elders and community members, Len Collard from Moodjar Consultancy and Elder Geri Hayden led a decoding process that drew on local Elders’ knowledge, language, memories and stories as primary sources, while also drawing on historical documents and wordlists created by European settlers.

This process decoded five local placenames and celebrated ancient stories behind local places in the Walyalup area. These placenames were creatively explored by community producing over 50 individual works and one larger collaborative artwork.

Community members were recorded by videographer Peter Cheng sharing the story and meaning of each placename. An interactive webpage of these stories and artworks has been produced, along with educational resources that will be launched at the exhibition.

The exhibition will also mark the launch of the Place Names Walyalup Interactive website.