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Ngumpie Weaving First Nations workshop

Term 2 & 4

Primary - High School: Stage 3 – 6, Years 5 – 10
Learning areas: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures, Creative Arts, History

Overlooking Sydney Harbour, students learn about First Nations heritage and culture from Barkindtji, Maraura, Yorta Yorta and Duduroa artist Tegan Murdock while weaving bracelets and baskets using natural materials, feathers, flowers and native seeds.

I want my weaving circles to help break down barriers between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Tegan Murdock

Useful information:

First Nations weaving, story and culture

In this creative weaving workshop, students learn about First Nation traditions from Australia’s first STEM knowledge makers. Reflecting upon the importance of weaving and how Aboriginal people have used this craft to weave important things for their people to source food and provide for family, students learn different weaving techniques and how all mobs across Australia use similar ways of weaving. 

First Nations weaving is a traditional practice of purposeful and sustainable making. Aboriginal people use natural materials such as long grasses, gumnuts, flowers and leaves to weave baskets for gathering food and other materials, as coolamons to carry babies or place ochres in for painting in ceremony, as well as for decorative reasons for performance, corroboree and to express their identity. 

In this way, students will connect with a living First Nations practice, on the traditional lands known as Tubowgule, a site renown for corrobboree, song and dance well before the Sydney Opera House building was built.

In this workshop students will:

  • Explore First Nations identity and cultural practices throughout time, and their relationship to nature, place and materials.
  • Learn about First Nations agricultural and sustainable practices such as weaving and other tool-making techniques.
  • Create woven bracelets, dilly bags and wearable pieces using natural fibres, seeds, leaves and flowers.

Sydney Opera House presents Ngumpie Weaving led by Barkindtji, Maraura, Yorta Yorta and Duduroa artist Tegan Murdock 

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Plan your visit

Excursions at the Opera House

A Day Out at the House

Offer your students to an unforgettable day out at the Sydney Opera House with our new curated program. Students can attend a Creative Learning Performance or Workshop onsite accompanied by a Walking Tour of our internationally renowned performing arts centre, all in time to back by the final school bell.

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Arts Assist

Does your School need financial assistance to attend a Sydney Opera House excursion?

Schools Tour

Filled with stories that demonstrate the power of creativity, students join a guided tour to learn how architect Jørn Utzon created a sculpture on Sydney Harbour that changed the course of 20th century architecture.

A young girl wearing a school uniform stares out a window in a Sydney Opera House foyer. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is seen in the background.

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