Dr Georgia Curran has been selected as one of 39 recipients of The University of Sydney’s ARC Future Fellowships, securing support for the preservation and intergenerational transmission of Walpiri Women’s song traditions.

Curran is a Robinson Senior Research Fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and has been working with Walpiri communities around the Central Australian Tanami desert since 2005. She assists with the documentation of cultural traditions to pass down knowledge, and to sustain it for future generations.

Curran has published two songbooks to aid this preservation: Jardiwanpa yawulyu | Warlpiri women’s songs from Yuendumu (2014), which is about a song series sung by Walpiri women before ceremony; and Yurntumu-wardingki juju-ngaliya-kurlangu yawulyu: Warlpiri women’s songs from Yuendumu (2017).

Georgia Curran, left, working with Enid Nangala Gallagher. Photo supplied

In her current fellowship, she is working on a project titled Holding on to Warlpiri Songs: Supporting intergenerational transmission of Indigenous cultural heritage, aiming to reconnect Walpiri communities with past documentation and recordings of their cultural heritage.

Curran will continue her research and collaboration with Walpiri women in her undertaking of the ARC Future Fellowship, working with these communities to strengthen their cultural connections, and set up systems to sustain this heritage for future generations.