Nginha Guurrumali (This is Guurramali)

This is a long form documentary about Guurramali, an eight year old Indigenous boy from Australia who currently challenges preconceptions of Aboriginal identity because of his light-coloured skin.

This story is part of a wider project which I have been collaborating on with Fleur Magick Dennis, an Indigenous woman from the Wiradjuri and Ngemba nation ​in Australia. Fleur's eight year old son, Guurramali is a Wiradjuri & Ngemba/Wayilwan and Yuin boy from regional New South Wales. Guurramali carries his culture forward with the cultural ways of living and being that his parents teach him day to day.

Together with his family they travel extensively every year to remote and rural Aboriginal communities in Eastern Australia to teach and share their cultural knowledge with other Nations.

Ongoing colonisation, the Stolen Generations, and the devastating impacts of racist assimilation policies has meant the passing down of Aboriginal culture has been disrupted since 1788.

As part of our collaboration, Fleur and I have each written captions for the corresponding photographs. As a process, this demonstrates both the importance of observing cultural protocols when sharing cultural knowledge, as well as showing and recognising the different knowledge traditions that guide our interpretations of the images.

As an Australian Peruvian woman with Indigenous Peruvian ancestry, this collaboration has not only gifted me with friendship and knowledge about First Nations culture but also helped me to enter my own questions about identity.