First Nations artists across Australia participated in this art project, initiated by Gender and Disaster Australia (GADAus – formerly the GAD Pod). Communities considered how gender is implicated in their experiences of disasters. The project provided community groups with a culturally safe space and time to discuss events that impacted their communities, and the different ways women, men and non-binary people have been affected. GADAus has evidenced over a decade that family violence increases amongst non-Indigenous people after disasters. However, little is known about what happens within First Nations communities affected by disasters concerning gendered roles and family violence. This project represents a small step towards opening conversations.

Watnanda Consulting were engaged to coordinate this project and guided by Gunditjmara cultural principles to enable each person to participate with self-determination, flexibility, and new opportunities. The feedback on the project process was that it was simple (no red tape), empowering, self-determining, showed trust, and was action-oriented. Participants noted, “This is how we like to do business.” They were surprised to have such a blank canvas when it came to designing how, when and where they would undertake the project.

Opportunities to enhance self-determination have stemmed from this project for participants. It has provided a chance for people to gather, reflect, discuss, and tell their stories, which are then portrayed in an artwork about gender and disaster. This project hopes to gain an insight of how gender is relevant to disasters and experiences for First Nations people. By doing so, the emergency management sector can become more inclusive and effective. We all have much to learn.

From the art to the heart: First Nations people taking on gender and disaster allows people to see these paintings firsthand. This travelling exhibition launches in Queensland in July, visits New South Wales in August, and continues to each state and territory.

Browse through our Art Exhibition Catalogue to see reproductions of this beautiful artwork, along with the artists’ statements and key learnings.

At the 2024 DEMC (Disaster & Emergency Management Conference) on the Gold Coast, Ammie Howell, Caroline Atkinson and Christine Ross took part in a panel presentation titled: From the art to the heart: First Nations people taking on gender and disaster.

The presentation aimed to explain the ways gender is implicated in First Nations communities’ experiences of disasters and emergencies as well as show the great diversity amongst First Nations communities across Australia in their experience of disasters and emergencies. One of the goals of the panel was to show how self-determination, flexibility and opportunities allows art, conversation and connection within and between First Nations communities, and how that can inform the Australian emergency sector to achieve more inclusive and more effective emergency services and disaster risk reduction.

The panel discussed the art project on gender and disaster, which was coordinated by Watnanda Consulting and guided by Gunditjmara cultural principles. The project was funded by Gender and Disaster (through Commonwealth DSS funding) and the beautiful paintings were on display in the exhibition booth for the entirety of the conference which caught the eye of all the delegates and created a talking point.

It was our great pleasure to announce Tahlia McEwen as the 2024 recipient of Gender and Disaster Australia's Leaders in their own Right: First Nations Scholarship. 

The scholarship aims to facilitate a shared experience between parents/guardians and their children at gender and/or disaster conferences, promoting engagement for, and offering perspectives from, young First Nations individuals. 

Tahlia attended the Disaster and Emergency Management Conference (DEMC) on the Gold Coast, along with a strong GADAus contingent, including her mother, Ammie Howell. Ammie painted an amazing triptych which, along with other artworks from around the country, formed a spectacular backdrop to the GADAus’ Panel presentation, ‘From the Art to the Heart’.

Tahlia helped set up the Opening Art Exhibition in the Gender and Disaster Australia booth, and actively took part in both formal presentations and informal networking opportunities at the DEMC24. Her engagement and energy was contagious, with DEMC24 organisers now reflecting on a stronger First Nations presence at future conferences. You can see the dynamism of the booth, the art and the panel in the photographs above and below.