We are an interdisciplinary, intercultural team of artist-scholars investigating listening to country as a methodology and technology for developing cultural strength, agency, and wellbeing among institutionalised Indigenous peoples. We are united by common values around the centrality of Country in Indigenous cultural strength, agency, and wellbeing. Listening to Country opens up the role of the arts in Indigenous health research, recognising that the arts are key to a relational methodology. The first relationship is the relationship to Country.

Vicki recording a poem inside a tree

Sarah and Aunty Estelle, Maiwar (Brisbane River)

Bianca and Aunty Melita at Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre

Dr Vicki Saunders (Gunggari) is a public health researcher who uses arts-led and poetic enquiry in the fields of child protection and family wellbeing. She is Research Lead at the First Peoples Health Unit, Griffith University.

Dr Bianca Beetson (Gubbi Gubbi/Kabi Kabi) is a visual artist and curator, arts leader, and Director of the Indigenous Research Unit at Griffith University.

Dr Sarah Woodland is a practitioner-researcher who has been developing creative projects with incarcerated adults and young people for the past 20 years. She is Dean's Research Fellow at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne.

Dr Leah Barclay is a sound artist and acoustic ecologist whose work investigates the value of acoustic ecology as a socially engaged, accessible, interdisciplinary field that can inspire communities across the world to listen to the environment. She is a Lecturer of Design in the School of Creative Industries, University of the Sunshine Coast.

This team is supported by Aunty Melita Orcher and Aunty Estelle Sandow from the Brisbane Council of Elders, and an advisory group that includes Dr Claire Walker, (Director of the Murri Dhagun cultural unit of Queensland Corrective Services), and criminology expert Professor Andrew Day from James Cook University. Professor Elena Marchetti from the Griffith Law School conducted a process evaluation of the pilot program, available for download here. 

Leah recording at Maroochydore