The Quandamooka Festival is up and running again, now in its third year.
And leading the way with some firm direction, is Festival Curator of the Quandamooka Festival, Avril Cecilia Quaill.
Avril is highly qualified and her direction this year, heads the festival into some exciting new directions.
The successful opening has just been completed, and there are three months of activities and events from July to September.
There is a full program of up to 55 events and activities over the long period, making it one of the longest annual major events in Australia.
The Festival is designed to appeal to all ages and includes cultural tours, whale watching, art exhibitions, workshops, traditional songs, dance and music performances, Welcome to Country smoking ceremonies, outdoor film nights, markets, food, sporting events, sailing regattas, story-telling and poetry, kids' sand sculpture competition, Quandamooka Land and Sea discovery days, speaker forums and symposium and more, including:
– Yura (Welcome)! Quandamooka Festival Opening Celebration – coinciding with the beginning of NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islander Day of Commemoration)
– Winnam NAIDOC Kunjiel (Corroboree) - Traditional ceremony and dance of First Nation People from both mainland Australia and Pacific Nations together
– Yura Yalingbila – Welcome the Whales – Smoking Ceremony and blessing of the whale migration passing North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah) on their way to northern breeding grounds
– Kunjiel (Corroborree) – Closing Weekend of ceremony, traditional and contemporary dance and music performances including international First Nations guest artists
– Buangan Biyigi – Dolphin Day Celebrations – educative event about the dolphins of the bay
The full program is at www.quandamookafestival.com
Avril is excited to be involved with the festival this year and comes to North Stradbroke Island with a wealth of experience in event management.
Avril Quaill is both an Indigenous artist and curator. She holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney.
She is a descendant of the Nunukul people of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) with clan associations to the Goenpul and Nuigi people of Moreton Bay (Quandamooka) in south-east Queensland.
Avril established herself as an artist in the early 1980s. Her first work, Trespassers Keep Out! (1982) was a screen-print poster which used as its motif, the Aboriginal flag. In 1987 she was awarded a Visual Arts Fellowship by the Australia Council for the Arts and traveled to Ramingining in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, taking part in arts workshops.
She has worked with the Queensland Art Gallery, the Department of State Development and Trade, as an artistic director and event coordinator as well as working in regional arts and at Bond University and much much more, including selected authorships.
• Avril Quaill ready for a hectic Quandamooka Festival.
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