The Naming is one of my favorite projects, where I had the opportunity to use large-scale characters not only to entertain but to serve a meaningful purpose.

Local Indigenous Elder Laurie Padmore of the Dulgubarra Yidinji people shared with me his vision of reviving his traditional language, acknowledging the existence of the local Indigenous culture, and enhancing its visibility. His dream of having bilingual signage in his town had been rejected—and even scorned—by local authorities. In response, I proposed creating a giant character who would roam the town during the festival, installing signs in the traditional language.

Janggaburru, the character, not only translated some existing signs but, more importantly, introduced new ones. Since simple translations would only reinforce the imposition of colonial culture, I encouraged Uncle Laurie to name what the current signs left out.

As a result, we added new names to the existing signs for street directions, tourist sites, and colonial “heritage must-see” spots, including:

• Directions: The names of local ancient and living neighbouring tribes.
• Tourist “must-see”: Culturally significant traditional landmarks.
• Historically significant locations: Sites like massacre grounds or  burial sites flooded by the creation of a lake for tourist activities.

All the signage was in language only. The translation was provided in the festival booklets and on the dedicated Memetica website’s page, where one can also hear how those names are pronounced.