In 2023, M&G NSW’s IMAGinE Awards acknowledged both Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to  and for Excellence by a NSW Aboriginal Curator

The ACHAA Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to NSW Aboriginal Culture, Heritage and Arts

Dr Uncle Stan Grant Senior AM

Uncle Stan Grant Sr has been crucial to the reconstruction, revival and teaching of Wiradjuri language, enriching the lives of countless thousands of students and Wiradjuri people.

Born in 1940, he learnt to speak Wiradjuri from his grandfather Wilfred Johnson (known as Budyaan). When Uncle Stan was only seven or eight years old, his grandfather was arrested and detained overnight after a policeman overheard him speaking in language.

From the next day on, Budyaan refrained from speaking Wiradjuri in public. But he continued to speak it in the bush which was where young Stan learnt his language along with hunting and other skills. Language, his grandfather told him, was important because “it is who you are and where you belong”.

He honoured his grandfather’s memory in his 1999 short story collection Stories told by my grandfather and other old men. Then In 2005 with the late Dr John Rudder he published the nearly 600 page A New Wiradjuri Dictionary. The following year his work was recognised with the Deadly Award for Outstanding Achievement in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education. Uncle Stan has since produced numerous publications, recordings and teaching resources including children’s books, song books and university texts alongside being a teacher, lecturer, course developer and passionate advocate himself.

Over the past decade, he has successfully collaborated with Wiradjuri/Gamillaroi multi-disciplinary artist Jonathon Jones, with language and concept informing each other.  As a result, their collaborations can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, and the Art Gallery of NSW. Additionally their works have appeared at the Powerhouse Museum, the Art Gallery of South Australia, in triennials, festivals and public art commissions including the permanent Wagga Wagga weaving welcome at Wagga Wagga Regional Airport. Uncle Stan has also been cultural advisor to other exhibitions including for the Bathurst Regional Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of NSW.

Uncle Stan was named a Member of the Order of Australia in 2009 for “service to Indigenous education and the preservation and promotion of the Wiradjuri language and culture, as a teacher and author, and to youth”. He was granted an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in recognition of his work in education and language revival by Charles Sturt University in 2013.

He has also been recognised with Lifetime Achievement Awards from the National NAIDOC Committee and the NSW Aboriginal Languages Trust and now joins the roll call of ACHAA IMAGinE Award recipients for his Lifetime Contribution to NSW Culture, Heritage and Arts.

The 2023 ACHAA award for Excellence by an Aboriginal Curator

CHERIE JOHNSON
Cultural Resurgence
Newcastle Museum

Cherie Johnson is the founder and CEO of Speaking in Colour, which offers programs to Aboriginal students and community members to engage in Aboriginal cultural practices, such as weaving and making of possum skin cloaks. Led by Johnson, Cultural Resurgence featured artworks made by over 600 program participants from across the region. The exhibition was a timely reminder that Australia has one of the oldest cultures in the world and that the practices on show are techniques handed down through many generations.

Other 2023 Nominees

Steven Ross, Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative Baya-Ngara-Banga (Speak-Listen-Make)
Keith Munro, Museum of Contemporary Art Kevin Gilbert Artist Room
Ronald Briggs, State Library of NSW Koori Knockout 50 Years
Tess Allas and Alinta Maguire, Wollongong Art Gallery Coomaditchie: The Art of Place