The pitoval First Nations celebration that is NAIDOC Week is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year - and continues until Sunday 13 July. The 2025 theme—The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy—looks firmly to the future while celebrating the achievements of the past.

And that theme has inspired this episode of Streets of Your Town.

Renowned Torres Strait Islander artist Ken Thaiday is a cultural custodian whose remarkable kinetic sculptures have featured in exhibitions around the world.

Together with his son Paul Thaiday, they are restoring and creating new artworks for this year’s Cairns Indigenous Art Fair or CIAF, starting on July 10.

Born and raised on Darnley Island - the man affectionately known as Uncle Ken has spent decades interpreting traditional Torres Strait Islander ceremonies through these striking moving sculptures, dance masks and headdresses that move with dancer and appear to come to life.

He uses a mix of modern and traditional techniques and materials to keep his culture alive, continuing a tradition that has been handed down for hundreds of generations over thousands of years.

Even now in his senior years, with his mobility declining, Uncle Ken cuts bamboo to exact proportions on his lap ready for assembly, with the armrests of his wheelchair also showing the saw marks from his work.

As Uncle Ken and Paul tell us on this episode of Streets of Your Town, these three shark masks and three dugong sculptures are symbolic ceremonial objects, that show the power of intergenerational collaboration.

Streets of your Town podcast would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians on whose land this story was gathered, the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji peoples.

I acknowledge that for tens of thousands of years First Nations people walked this country and shared stories on this great land down under, and I walk in their footsteps today.

I pay my respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.

For more shownotes and links - please go to my substack for this episode at soyt.substack.com

nancehaxton.com.au

Three hours drive from Cairns in the vast wilderness of Cape York in far-north Queensland, is a little town called Laura.

And for 128 years, this little town that is not much more than a roadhouse and a pub has hosted the annual Laura Amateur Turf Club Race meeting, attracting jockeys, horses and racegoers from all over the state.

Fans and competitors alike come from hundreds of kilometres around to take part in what has grown into an internationally known race, rodeo and campdraft event, all surrounded by a huge bush camp thronging with 3000 fans gathering for the weekend’s festivities. Tickets to this year’s event on the last weekend of June completely sold out.

On this episode of Streets of Your Town, we’ll meet some of the amazing bush characters and rodeo riders that keep this annual tradition alive, and even a couple of the journos who keep on top of their 150,000 kilometre patch of wild outback country to report what’s going on for their treasured Cape York Weekly readership - in one of the few print editions of a weekly regional newspaper left in Queensland.

You'll the legendary 80 year old former jockey Slick Davies - who now acts as the caretaker all year round for the Laura racetrack, so that it’s ready for its annual moment of race day glory. He was kind enough to speak to me just before the Laura Races, from the verandah of his house overlooking the track he takes so much pride in.

Slick is joined by his old mate Bluey Forsyth - who’s called the Laura Races and many others on the country horse racing circuit in Queensland’s far-north for decades. I love how you can hear their close mateship reflected in their conversation…

Then of course there are the rodeo riders like Anthony Ryan who make this annual event such a spectacle.

Shandelle Hilditch talks to us too - she's competed in campdraft and rodeo events on the circuit since she was a child, and now takes great pride in her children taking part as well.

Spending the weekend at the Laura Races and Rodeo has shown me not only what a great event this is for bringing together locals from all around the far flung reaches of this remote stretch of far-north Queensland, but it’s also shown me the cultural importance of keeping this Australian tradition alive.

As shown by the presence of two reporters from the Cape York Weekly - the editor Lyndon Keane and journo Chisa Hasegawa, who reported extensively on the event. We talk to them in this special edition nod to my Journo Project series.

Thanks to all the characters who I met at the Laura Races Rodeo and campdraft who you can hear in this order:

• Laura Racetrack caretaker Slick Davies and race caller Bluey Forsyth from 2:53
• International professional bull rider Anthony Ryan from 13:59
• Legendary campdraft and rodeo rider Shandell Hilditch 18:38
• Cape York Weekly journo Chisa Hasegawa and editor Lyndon Keane from 24:25

You can read the latest happenings in this remote corner of the world at the Cape York Weekly here: https://capeyorkweekly.com.au/

For more shownotes and links - please go to my substack for this episode at soyt.substack.com

https://www.eatlocalmonth.com.au/

nancehaxton.com.au

There are some conversations that take you to places you never expected, and this one on the banks of the Brisbane River in Brisbane’s cultural precinct was certainly one of them.

This chat with Kate Baggerson I hope will inspire you to be more creative in your everyday life, as it did for me.

The executive director of Everybody Now is celebrating the tenth year of this unique arts organisation which harnesses the power of storytelling, creativity and artistic collaboration to make art with impact all around Australia and now overseas.

To mark the anniversary year, Kate Baggerson tells us on Streets of Your Town how Everybody Now is doing a year-long program of events collaborating with artists, community members and organisations across the country, celebrating the power of art as a catalyst for social cohesion, and to improve our wellbeing.

Upcoming dates for Everybody Now productions in its tenth anniversary year 2025 include:

2–4 July: ‘Tin Can Radio’ at Mackay Festival.

19 July: Ipswich Civic Centre 50th Anniversary concert event.

September: ‘Artist in Place’ Residency 2 creating immersive soundscapes with Kombumerri man Lann Levinge.

October: ‘Artist in Place’ Residency 3 Home Stories with award-winning puppeteer and theatre artist Ros Oades.

September - October: Artist-led workshop ‘Creative and Connected’ to generate social connection and wellbeing.

November: ‘A Place to Belong’ - a new collaboration between Everybody NOW! and UK based global design sensation Morag Myerscough.

29 November: Art in the Park - Everybody NOW’s annual, open and accessible Art in the Park event

For more shownotes and links - please go to my substack for this episode at soyt.substack.com

https://www.eatlocalmonth.com.au/

nancehaxton.com.au