In 2021 PCPA collaborated on a documentary and mixed-media photography project with members of the Deaf Indigenous Dance Group (DIDG) in Cairns, Queensland. The project started when we met members of DIDG by chance at the 2021 Laura Dance Festival in Cape York and continued for months afterward.

DIDG participants include Amelia Street, Joanne Samuel, Leslie Footscray, Clifford Johnson, Sue Frank, Shadrach Sales-Graham, Marie Raimo, Paul Norman, Patricia Banjo Morris and Nathaniel Murray.

What started out as a documentary photography approach - in time - developed into a more engaged and sustained collaborative project that includes still photos, video, as well as oral and written stories.

This project has a very special place in our hearts because of the friendships that developed from the project as well as the organic nature in which the project developed.

Project Aims:

• Produce a set of documentary photography images of DIDG rehearsing and performing for an editorial story.

• Produce a series of photographic portraits of DIDG members

• Record oral personal histories of DIDG members with the assistance of Deaf Services Qld (Auslan interpreter).

Project Outcomes:

• A set of mixed-media artworks made by DIDG members

• A set of black-and-white documentary images of DIDG’s rehearsals and performances

• A framed set of 20 exhibition prints (A2 size) for DIDG’s ongoing use.

• Acquisition of photographs, mixed media portraits, and interviews by Queensland State Library for the permanent collection, with funds from the sale of portraits and interviews to DIDG members.

• A published editorial story in The Guardian