Animating Country

ABSTRACT Eleven Animation students from Australia and the UK spent two weeks in the Australian Outback with the Guwa-Koa Traditional Owners and co-created a five-minute stop motion animation as part of the Vision Splendid Outback Film Festival. Over the two-week intensive ‘Bootcamp’, the students researched, planned, created and screened the film as a creative interpretation of a Dreamtime story shared by Elder Minnie Mace. The course was designed to facilitate students’ cultural inquiry and critical awareness of Australia’s colonial history through open dialogue, discussion and co-production, while gaining first-hand insights into the ethics of cross-cultural co-production. It is a fundamental tenant of the course that all stories and artefacts created through the collaboration remain the property of the Guwa-Koa Traditional Owners. The students and schools maintain permission to screen the works. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT