The importance of interconnectedness across First Nations culture was the theme for Parrtjima – A Festival in Light in 2024.

Parrtjima Curator Rhoda Roberts AO said interconnectedness was and is embedded in culture, like footprints in the red sand.

“It ensures a collective responsibility and an awareness of the bond we have with all forms of life,” she said.

Rhoda, who became Parrtjima Curator in 2017, said everything is living in Arrernte culture and in the old ways the approach was one of sharing and working together.

“Our ancestors were living under strict social structures and belief systems where everything was interrelated from the land and waterways to our sky country and seasons,” she said.

“This way of being has sustained and unified Aboriginal people for thousands of years. Everyone had a place and purpose guided by eons of storytelling, ceremony and song lines that connected the entire nation.

Rhoda said that to this day the most wonderful things still happen out of interconnectedness.

“Along with resilience that’s tinged with laughter, interconnectedness blankets the wisdom of generations.”

“At Parrtjima we are reminded by our hosts, the Arrernte people, that culture is everything to experience and absorb.”