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Desert Pea Media
Song Nation Vol. 1 album

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Song Nation Volume 1 came about through a partnership between three charitable organisations - Desert Pea Media, The Smugglers of Light Foundation and UNLtd.  Desert Pea Media artists worked with 10 regional and remote communities around Australia, using music and film as a conduit for creating conversation and dialogue around local social and cultural issues. The core artists for the project were Toby Finlayson (Director/ Co-writer/ Producer/ DOP/ Editor) Joel Westlake (Music Producer/ Co-Writer/ Camera Assistant) and Gail Mabo (Cultural Consultant).

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The album was recorded in classrooms, broom closets and community facilities from extremely remote Tjuntjuntjara in the WA desert, to Murray Island in the Torres Straits and everywhere in between...

The song from Cairns High School ‘Built To Last’ won the National Indigenous Music Award this year for ‘Community Music Clip of the Year’.

There’s lots of ways you can get involved and support Desert Pea Media to become more sustainable and reach even more communities. Get involved here.

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You can purchase the album via Bandcamp here.

Subscribe to the Desert Pea Media e-newsletter here.

Follow Desert Pea Media on Facebook here.

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Desert Pea Media

In Australia in 2014, many Indigenous Australians continue to suffer huge disadvantages, both culturally and socially, as a direct consequence…

In Australia in 2014, many Indigenous Australians continue to suffer huge disadvantages, both culturally and socially, as a direct consequence of our shameful history of racism and violence. Many of Australia’s First Nations continue to feel the effects of generational trauma on a daily basis: low life expectancy and high rates of unemployment, suicide, incarceration, isolation and substance abuse.

Desert Pea Media is a response to this.

Established in 2002 DPM is a registered charitable organisation that works with individuals and communities in regional and remote areas in Australia to support them to create important social and cultural dialogue

DPM uses the process of contemporary storytelling to genuinely engage and empower participants. We provide the support and tools to allow them to explore local cultural and social issues and tell their story through high quality and relevant mediums.

We work with elders, young people, community leaders and local service providers to ensure every program is relevant, engaging and appropriate to their needs and those of their communities.

See some of our previous music and documentary projects here

One of our favourite quotes, which has been spoken by visual artist, activist and academic Lilla Watson, and which she says was collaboratively written by Aboriginal activists in Queensland in the 1970s, is:

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

We believe that OUR cultural liberation as Australian people is bound up with the liberation of the First Nations of Australia. So let us all take responsibility for today, and work together to build a respectful and inclusive Australian culture that we can all be proud of…

Toby Finlayson
General Manager

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