Partner Organisations
Griffith University • University of the Sunshine Coast • University of Queensland • Edith Cowan University
Music is an enduring link with our ancestors, our Country, our languages. It links our past with our present and future. It holds the comfort of familiarity and belonging. Music is healing. It is strength. Music speaks to our communities and about them to others.
First Nations music is expression, inclusion, creativity and survival. Music is oxygen – sustaining us. It is play - connecting us with ourselves and others. Music is medicine – healing us. It is temporary and timeless – releasing and grounded. Music is a sound of the earth, the ocean, wind, rain, thunder… all things in Country.
It reflects the resolute strength of First Nations music and musicians despite historical and ongoing colonisation.
Determinants of health are anything in our lives that affect our health and wellbeing for better or worse.
Recognised First Nations cultural health determinants in Australia are things such as connection to our heritage, Country, Spirit, lore, kinship networks, community, and social and emotional wellbeing.
Music is something that First Nations People have been practising for millennia to care for one another and Country, teach, communicate, lobby for change, resist, advocate, express, and heal. We adopt a strength-based approach to explore musical activity as a cultural strength and resource for promoting First Nations health, wellbeing, and healing.
Griffith University • University of the Sunshine Coast • University of Queensland • Edith Cowan University