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Community Banashi
Community Banashi was an international collaborative project exploring digital storytelling, language and culture through the creative voices of young students in rural Australia and Japan. The project was funded by the Australia-Japan Foundation of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and brought together academics, educators and communities across both countries.
The project was led by Associate Professor Naomi Wilks-Smith (RMIT School of Education) and Associate Professor Li Ping Thong (RMIT School of Design), in collaboration with Professor Darren Lingley and Sean Burgoine from Kochi University, Japan. Naomi has been a long-term collaborator of mine – this project continued our interdisciplinary work combining expertise in education, language and digital media.
Community Banashi explored how digital storytelling can connect communities across geographical and cultural boundaries. The project involved working with students from Homelands School Garrthalala, located in the remote Yolŋu community of Garrthalala in East Arnhem Land (Northern Territory, Australia), and Kagami Shogakko School in rural Kochi, Japan.
Through intensive workshops, students in both locations were mentored in the process of developing and producing their own short films. Importantly, the students were the primary creative drivers of the work. They acted as directors, producers and camera operators, shaping the stories they wanted to tell about their communities and cultures.
In Australia, we travelled to the remote Garrthalala homeland to run a four-day digital storytelling and filmmaking workshop with students from Transition to Year 9. The journey itself was a major logistical undertaking involving multiple flights and a challenging four-wheel-drive journey across boggy terrain to reach the community.
During the workshop, students developed and filmed a story centred on the LipaLipa canoe, an important cultural object connected to broader stories, songs and dances within Yolŋu culture. The film was produced primarily in Yolŋu Matha, reflecting the community’s language and cultural context. Naomi played a crucial role facilitating the translation and language components, while I facilitated the filmmaking process, guiding students through pre-production and production using professional digital video equipment.
Students quickly learned the technical aspects of filming and demonstrated remarkable creativity and confidence in shaping their narrative. The workshop emphasised agency and authorship: the film was conceived, directed and performed by the students themselves.
Following the workshop, the project moved into an extensive post-production phase involving editing, translation and subtitling to prepare the film for cross-cultural viewing.
In parallel, our collaborators at Kochi University ran a similar project in Japan with students from Kagami Shogakko School, where students produced a film about preparations for the Tachi-Odori dance festival, a significant local cultural tradition.
The result of the project was two short films-one created in Australia and one in Japan-each representing children’s perspectives on their local culture, environment and traditions. Students from both countries watched each other’s films, creating a unique exchange of stories, language and cultural understanding.
Community Banashi demonstrated how digital media can function as a powerful medium for cross-cultural dialogue and community engagement. By enabling students to tell stories about their own places in their own voices, the project challenged simplified or stereotypical representations of both Australia and Japan, particularly those associated with urban or tourist-focused narratives.
For me, the project also exemplifies the kind of interdisciplinary work that characterises much of my research practice. Through expertise in digital design and media production, I frequently collaborate across disciplines-working with colleagues in areas such as education, language, community engagement and cultural research. Community Banashi is one example of how digital storytelling can support meaningful partnerships with communities while creating opportunities for knowledge exchange and creative expression.
The project culminated in the production of the two films and the creation of the Community Banashi website, where the works are publicly available and can be viewed alongside information about the collaboration.
Further project details can be explored on the Community Banashi website.
View the final Garrthalala short film below:
Project Team
Associate Professor Naomi Wilks-Smith (School of Education, RMIT University)
Associate Professor Li Ping Thong (School of Design, RMIT University)
Professor Darren Lingley (Kochi University)
Sean Burgoine (Kochi University)
Funding / Support
Australia–Japan Foundation (Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade)