Our Legacy
In 2024, Shine On Productions presents the second iteration of the Shine On Gimuy multi-arts light festival, on the homelands of the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji peoples, in Gimuy/Cairns, Queensland. Building from the success of 2023’s inaugural year—which attracted 33,000 attendees—visitors to Tropical North Queensland each year can experience the very best of First Nations/Bama arts and Cultures (‘Bama’ First Nations peoples from rainforest Country). All the while beholding the beauty, histories and stories of the area.
Shine On Gimuy, led by creative arts and festivals pioneer, Rhoda Roberts AO, work with our Cultural Guides Committee. These Guides are made up of esteemed First Nations Elders, Lorekeepers, storytellers, Cultural practitioners, and leaders of industry and science. They each represent, not only different fields of expertise, but also the different Nations and clan groups from Tropical North Queensland. The Cultural Guides Committee is chaired by arts luminary, Lydia Miller (who is our Cultural Producer). A team of Artistic Associates, experts in various First Nations arts practices, assist producers and the Artistic Director in forming and delivering the annual program.
Each year, audiences from across the region, Australia and the world experience “Cultural immersion” like nowhere else. All our events take place beside the glistening coral sea, girt by emerald mountains, along the foreshore of Gimuy/Cairns Esplanade, set beneath a boulevard of fig trees. Our festival’s events are grounded in a philosophy of First Nations First, truth-telling and celebration! Our inuagural year (2023) showcased well over 100 First Nations/Bama creatives and Cultural practitioners—with our Calling Country Ceremony featuring over 90 dancers alone!
Shine On Productions, in delivering Shine On Gimuy 2023-2025, have partnered with Queensland Music Festival (QMF) to promote Shine on Gimuy Festival as the cornerstone event of Qld Music Trails’ The Tropics Trail music program.
Shine On Productions (ergo, Shine On Gimuy Festival) places great emphasis on values of:
• Resilient Communities (post-cyclone Jasper),
• Visibility and Recognition for First Nations/Bama peoples and Cultures,
• Skills-Building in the festivals and events spaces (in the lead-up to Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games),
• Building an accessible, safe and family-friendly atmosphere, where education, equality and joy are centred.
SKILLS DEVELOPMENT
From experience in 2023, and from extensive industry discussions, Shine On Productions noticed a clear gap and lack of First Nations/Bama arts and events workers local in the Gimuy/Cairns area. While we value our multi-cultural team of seasoned events workers, we’d like to grow our base for engaging emerging First Nations interested workers—either as trainees (shadowing our team in certain roles of interest and applicable learnings), or, as volunteers. We see great potential to engage an entire audience of potential First Nations arts and events workers in our festival; as well as artists/creatives. While we’re yet to unearth defined pathways Shine can deliver in an official training sense, we’re eager to engage many volunteers in 2024, as a way to identify a potential, future First Nations arts-based workforce—building the strategic argument for greater support for Shine’s broader social/economic development aspirations, and arts training in general.
FIRST NATIONS COMMUNITIES
Shine is committed to working with all First Nations/Bama, arts and community stakeholders to build crucial pathways so as to advance the networks and skills of emerging First Nations/Bama arts workers.
The success of Shine On Gimuy’s 2023 inaugural year (and projections by IER) demonstrates that markets/audiences have a continuous and great thirst for First Nations arts and cultural expressions and experiences—year-round. Thus, showing that there are still many untapped economic and artistic opportunities for First Nations/Bama artists, and, for all players to operate in this space—where Blak Excellence in the arts is paramount. Recent Productivity Commission (Commonwealth) and the State of the Arts (Council) reports indicate that First Nations art is worth a combined hundreds of millions of dollars worth of an industry (in terms of saleable art, to the first and secondary markets). The chief threat to this economic buoyancy is Fake Art, and in Gimuy/Cairns—a major tourism hub for Australia—the tourism market is swamped with imported and fake arts and crafts of “Indigenous” appearance. The threat to our sector is not more First Nations-led opportunities for authentic arts and cultural expressions, but of commercialised Cultural Theft from outside of our ecology.
Like all First Nations arts events, and as an organisation operating in this space, Shine On Gimuy and Shine On Productions acknowledges that the esteem First Nations’ arts and Cultures are held in, today, has been at great cost to them. While more awareness than ever is across both markets and operators, great risks are still posing First Nations artists and Cultural practitioners from fake art and misappropriation. Working with our Artistic Director and producers, as well as Cultural Guides Committee and Artistic Associates, is a wealth of stakeholders with shareable knowledge and input framing the best and most ethical ways for Shine On Productions to operate. We rely on Cultural and strategic industry advice from our stakeholders to help us shape our events and festival setting and interactivity, between First Nations peoples and space/place.
A major element of our work is to showcase First Nations arts and Cultures and in particular, visual artists. Our large-scale sculptural adaptations of works—under their lead—are to show the possibilities of imagination our artists have, and we do our best to help them realise their “big” dreams for their works! Our Blak Markets is a major showcase for visual artists, artisans and First Nations businesses. In this sense, the economic benefits are direct and immediate as a commercial marketplace opportunity for them (with our audience).
Our marketing and promotions campaign, for Shine On Gimuy, will highlight the importance of authenticity and ethical sales for First Nations/Bama artists. This will be a boon for local artists and for tourists and locals—especially so close to Christmas period—to be able to buy direct from First Nations/Bama artists. As a tourist town, Gimuy/Cairns contributes immensely to the “fake art” souvenirs sector—Shine is the seasonal answer to that option.
TOURISM
In showcasing esteemed First Nations talents—across art forms, disciplines and sciences—Shine On Gimuy (as an event in 2023) generated over $2 Million for the Gimuy/Cairns and state economy, with IER projecting the Dream Aloud concert to peak at contributing a further $10 Million into the economy in 2024. In a time of disaster recovery and youth crime high on the social, political and press agendas, Shine On Gimuy will be an event which will create safe spaces for inspired community engagement and participation.
Outside of the Gimuy/Cairns and First Nations/Bama communities, our main audience demographics in engagement and art/ticket sales (from individuals) are people both under and over 50 years of age who either have no children or have no children at home; but then, families were also highly represented in our audience base in 2023 (as such, our future programs will reflect an active push to engage people under 25 and family groups).
Shine On Productions attracts domestic tourists and art lovers from other parts of Queensland, particularly from North Queensland (i.e., Townsville, Mackay, Bundaberg etc.) and the South East Corner. We will continue to engage new audiences, who may come for the natural assets of the region, in all-things First Nations/Bama arts and Cultures. By expanding all program offerings; we’ll maximise on ‘return’ for our creative participants with direct, face-to-face economic opportunities.
For full insights into audience engagement statistics from 2023, please request to see Shine On Productions’ thorough Marketing Report 2023. Contact: Communityshineongimuy@gmail.com