The 2024 National NAIDOC Week Poster winner: Deborah (Deb) Belyea
The 2024 National NAIDOC Week Poster winner: Deborah (Deb) Belyea
The National NAIDOC committee are thrilled to announce artist Deb Belyea (pronounced Bel-yaaaay) as the winner of the 2024 NAIDOC Week Poster Competition. Deb's design captivated the National NAIDOC Committee and perfectly captured the meaning of the 2024 National NAIDOC Week theme Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud and Proud.
Deb is a proud member of the Samuawgadhalgal, (pronounced Sum-oo-ow-guth-ull-gull) Cassowary Clan, whose bloodlines stretch to the people of the top Western Torres Strait islands of Saibai (pronounced Si-bi), Dauan (pronounced Doo-un), and the Bamaga-Saibai (pronounced Bam-uga Si-bi) community of Cape York.
Currently living on the lands of the Juru people in Bowen, North Queensland, Deb is an educator, curriculum writer and practising artist.
“We saw tremendous talent in this year’s NAIDOC poster competition. We knew the theme would inspire mob and Deb’s work was exceptional,” explained National NAIDOC Committee Co-Chair Steven Satour.
The winning entry is titled, ‘Urapun Muy’ (pronounced Oorr-up-oon Mooy), and means ‘One Fire’ in the Kalaw Kawaw Ya (pronounced Kull-ow Koww-ow Yah) dialect.
“When I saw that the NAIDOC theme for this year was Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, Loud and Proud, I wanted to create an art piece that reflected our First Nations cultures”, said Deb.
‘Urapun Muy’ depicts the rich, multifaceted tapestry that makes up who we are as Blak, Loud and Proud mob.
The artwork shows ancestors hands placing an ember into a burning fire. This ember, and the fire, represents the sharing of cultural knowledge from one generation to the next.
“Culture is the fire that burns within all of us. It is essential to us when we talk about our people, identity, and spirituality.
“Throughout our lives, culture is taught to us by our Elders in our rich heritage languages, which have sprouted from our homelands. It shows us our roads to one another and how we belong to our Place or Country. As First Nations mob, it is our lifelong responsibility of learning, teaching and practising culture.”
“Deb’s artwork is extremely powerful, it features unique cultural elements that tell the story of the Cassowary Clan passing on knowledge. The NAIDOC Committee is very proud to have a Torres Strait Islander artist as the 2024 winner,” shared National NAIDOC Committee Co-Chair Dr Aunty Lynette Riley.
The National NAIDOC Committee and Kmart Group are proud to announce that Kmart and Target has once again been appointed the Official National NAIDOC Week Poster Distribution Partner for 2024.
Kmart and Target Chief Executive Officer John Gualtieri says “At Kmart and Target we are on a journey to ensure we not only make our stores a culturally safe place for the almost five percent of our team members across Australia who are Indigenous, but also for our customers. Our commitments in this space are important to us as a business, and we are proud to once again be partners of NAIDOC Week, and through our involvement help facilitate the celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, not only just for our team members but for communities right around Australia”.
The National NAIDOC Poster competition is an iconic feature of National NAIDOC Week and has a rich and significant history beginning in 1967 when the National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) first began producing posters.
National NAIDOC Week Posters distributed across all Kmart, K hub and Target stores nationwide from early June.