At Western Australia's oldest observatory, nestled in the Perth hills, a project to honour Australia's oldest culture and its connection to the stars is taking shape.
A disused telescope housing has been transformed into a public artwork that tells the story of "the emu in the sky" — what is known in Western culture as the Milky Way.
Wadjuk elder Noel Nannup, an advisor on the project, said there was a growing interest in Aboriginal Australia's understanding of the cosmos and their Worl Wangkiny — "sky stories".
"Aboriginal people are being put to the fore because they're finding out that Aboriginal people navigated by the stars for thousands of thousands of years, to the point where we could name at least 3,000 of those bright shiny stars out there and also the planets, and the moon," Dr Nannup said.
"There are songs and dances and art and all of those sorts of things that are expressed about the cosmos, and so we're now considered the first astronomers."
Students from Governor Stirling Senior High School in Woodbridge were recruited to help with the mural.
"We're very blessed in this part of the world with lots of very, very good artists and their immediate reaction was, well, we can do this," Dr Nannup said.
"However we think it would be beneficial to us as Aboriginal people and the community that we teach our youngsters to do it.
"We had this workshop and it was decided upon what the theme would be and who would be involved, and the progression was to incorporate a school into it as well, so you have intergenerational transference of this amazing talent."
'We follow the stars'
Artist Peter Farmer Sr said the painting told many important stories.
He said Indigenous Australians could tell from the emu's position in the night sky when it was time to collect emu eggs.
"We follow the stars and stuff at night to different places we wanted to go to," Mr Farmer said.
"It played a big part of where we navigated ourselves through our countries."
On the other side of the mural is the female story of the creation of the Milky Way.
"I'm very proud to have been given the opportunity to tell our stories and for people to know it," Mr Farmer said.
An opportunity to reach for the stars
According to Tourism WA, more than 80 per cent of visitors to WA want an Aboriginal cultural experience but only 26 per cent get one.
But the project's founder, Perth Observatory operations manager Francesca Flynn, saw it as an opportunity to reach for the stars.
"The Observatory's always wanted to do something to acknowledge the contribution of Aboriginal astronomy but hadn't really known how to go about that," Ms Flynn said.
She came up with the idea to celebrate 60,000 years of Noongar astronomical knowledge at the Observatory.
"Aboriginal knowledge is only just starting to become shared with the wider community and that kind of knowledge it's absolutely crucial that all Australians should be aware of," Ms Flynn said.
After more than a year of discussions with local Indigenous elders, artists and organisations, Ms Flynn saw a bigger opportunity to turn the site into an Indigenous-led tourism product and training centre for Indigenous students to learn the skills to become rangers and tourism operators.
The astronomy centre has partnered with Koya Aboriginal Corporation to offer "Aboriginal Nature Trekz" guided day and night cultural tours from the observatory.
Indigenous tourism an untapped asset
Koya managing director Quinton Tucker said it was important to capture the tourism market coming to WA.
"A lot of the experiences around seeing what the local Indigenous people are doing, I think tourists like to see that, so hopefully we can fill that niche," he said.
He said the project would be integral to reinvigorating stories handed down by elders.
Dr Nannup agreed and said indigenous tourism in WA had been sleeping.
"There's been an enormous gap for a very long time and people have actually begun to realise, 'wow Aboriginal people have done these amazing things'," he said.
"People can not get enough of it, so it's a growing area and also lots and lots of people are really interested in the sky now."
