ABSTRACT
Community Arts and Cultural Development (CACD) is a form of public pedagogy that seeks to intervene into the reproduction of meaning in public spaces. In this article, we explore the Bush Babies and Elders portrait project that sought to contribute to the empowerment of Aboriginal participants through counter-storytelling. Drawing on interview and survey data collected as part of a larger qualitative study, we examine Aboriginal participant's reflections on their participation and the meanings of the project. Anchored in a critical interpretive approach, thematic analysis of data resulted in the construction of two themes, cultural continuity and recognition and acknowledgement. These themes reflect the everyday politics of survival within a longer history of oppression and ongoing misrecognition. We discuss this project as an example of public pedagogy that expands spaces and resources for contesting exclusionary narratives that inform public memory, understood as a subject of debate, dialogue and critical engagement. As a form of counter-storytelling, CACD thus creates possibilities for transforming social identities, subjectivities and relationships in local and national contexts.
