Showcasing the creative artistry of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls across Western Australia.
The Art with the Stars exhibition is being held at the WA Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle, presenting incredible work produced by talented young artists in the Shooting Stars program. Each piece of art featured is a narrative in its own right, offering a window into the unique perspectives and incredible stories of these artists. The artwork collectively reflects their journeys, aspirations, and their deep connection to culture, community and self.
Art with the Stars is an enrichment program of Shooting Stars, where participants connect with a local Aboriginal artist to explore their cultural identity through art-making. This exhibition brings together artwork made across eight different projects at six different Shooting Stars sites, including Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing, Carnarvon, Mullewa, Kiara College and Collie.
Shooting Stars is an education engagement and empowerment program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander girls in Western and South Australia.
Based in twenty-two schools, Shooting Stars is predominantly guided and run by Aboriginal women, and reaches over 1,200 girls and young women. Everything the program does is grounded in Aboriginal ways of knowing, being, and doing.
Shooting Stars staff facilitate yarning circles with program participants, communities, and localised steering committees to gather feedback about the program, to ensure program delivery is place-based, and to identify barriers and facilitators to the participants’ empowerment.
In 2019, one of Shooting Stars’ localised steering committees suggested, during a yarning circle, that Shooting Stars implement a local cultural project. This project would have two key outcomes:
1. Participants could connect with, and learn about their culture, identity, and community through art-making and storytelling
2. The art or story would be shared with non-Aboriginal community members who could learn more about local Aboriginal culture.
From this idea, Shooting Stars applied for pilot funding, and the Art with the Stars project was born.
