Girra Maa is the School of Public Health’s Indigenous Health Discipline.
The Discipline aims to improve the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people through quality education, research and engagement at individual, family, community and policy levels.
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Indigenous
The term ‘Indigenous’ is used here to reflect UTS’s international perspective, which connects to Indigenous peoples of all nations and respectfully includes Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The term ‘Aboriginal’ reflects the cultural heritage of current Girra Maa staff and students, whose worldviews shape UTS's education, research and community engagement practice.
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About the artwork
The Girra Maa artwork has as its focus the amazing wattle tree, and more specifically, the seed pod and its seeds. Wattle is endemic to Australia and so diverse, with several hundred types and many names in Aboriginal languages. This diversity, like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures in Australia, is bound together with strong features. For wattle, core belonging is to the genus Acacia. Across Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have used wattle for millennia, for technology and tool making, nutrition, medicine, and place making. It is versatile, with every part useful, especially to promote good health and wellbeing.
The Girra Maa Indigenous Health Discipline is now shaped across the Faculty of Health and based in the School of Public Health. We are a type of pod for Indigenous peoples’ knowledges, rights, practices, and aspirations. We are inclusive of the faculty’s diverse schools, institutes, staff, students and collaborators, akin to seeds that have innate energy for growth.
Girra Maa’s wattle seed artwork was produced by Nathan Peckham, a direct descendent of the Tubbah Gah clan of the Wiradjuri nation. His company Yurana Creative is Dubbo based.
Using the Girra Maa wattle seed artwork. (PDF 159KB)