Desert Harmony: Learning and Teaching Experiences in Tennant Creek

Abstract

Since 2009, Queensland Conservatorium has been offering placements to music students in Tennant Creek, working alongside Barkly Regional Arts, Winnanjjakari Music Centre, and the local Indigenous and non-Indigenous community. A range of learning and teaching outcomes have resulted, including the development of new musical skills, a shared sense of learning between students and members of the community, and an immersive, transformative cultural experience. In 2010 these placements were situated as Work-Integrated Learning projects, giving the students credit towards their undergraduate music programs. In order to encourage the students to reflect deeply on this WIL experience, they were asked to produce digital stories and reflective journals. The creation of digital stories was important both for the students themselves, the supervising lecturers, and also as a means through which the depth of learning experiences could be communicated to their peers, the Conservatorium and Tennant Creek communities. These stories also played an important role in encouraging a continuing commitment and investment in the project from the organisations involved. At the same time, critical tensions can arise through this act of representing a remote community through personal stories. In this paper we focus in on some of these tensions, specifically how best to manage relationships between remote communities and learning institutions. We also discuss the overall project, including a screening of some of the students’ digital stories.