Museum of the Riverina’s Tim Kurylowicz accepts the Leo Kelly OAM Arts and Cultural Award from LGNSW president and Mayor of Forbes Phyllis Miller OAM. Photo: Local Government NSW.
The Museum of the Riverina’s Resettlement Podcast Series Wiradyuri Gawaymbanha-gu Mamalanha (Wiradjuri Welcome to Visitors) has claimed a prestigious creative honour at the 2025 Local Government NSW Awards.
The seven-part series, which tells the stories of Indigenous families who moved to Wagga Wagga in the 1970s and ’80s under the Federal Government’s Aboriginal Family Resettlement Scheme, was awarded the Leo Kelly OAM Arts and Cultural Award, which celebrates outstanding achievement by local government organisations in strategic planning for arts and culture.
The award marks the second win for the podcast, the first being the Local Government Professionals Excellence Award for Community Development, which was announced in June.
Museum of the Riverina general manager Tim Kurylowicz said the podcast marked a new and exciting opportunity for the museum to deliver stories, and that the recent success highlighted the work that went into the podcast.
“What’s so important about this award [Leo Kelly OAM Arts and Cultural Award] is that it recognises that, often, local councils right across the state take the lead in projects that engage with community and collect our history, which makes communities so vibrant and exciting,” Dr Kurylowicz said.
“This is wonderful recognition of what I think is a fairly groundbreaking podcast project, the Resettlement project.
“The thing that made it so special was that it connected with and unearthed a really contemporary living history, in the Aboriginal Resettlement scheme, that happened in the 1970s through to the 1990s in New South Wales.
“Thousands and thousands and thousands of Aboriginal people and families were relocated from urban environments to regional cities, including Wagga Wagga. This podcast interviewed some really significant leaders and families who were part of that process and did that important historical work of capturing their stories.”
Dr Kurylowicz said the podcast format was new for the museum, but it also presented a fresh way to deliver stories.
“It’s not just a project about gathering historical information, but it’s also about presenting it in a format that is relevant and engaging for the public,” he said.
“The fact that it’s a podcast project, not just some oral history recordings buried in a website somewhere, but that it’s on your local podcast app, in a format that’s really digestible and well structured, I think those are really special elements of this project.
“I think where this project started was with Aboriginal leaders in Wagga saying, ‘Hey, we think it’s important that our story is told, we have some really amazing stuff that happened.’
“It features some difficult stuff, but also some incredibly positive things and things that the community can rightly be proud of.
“To have those stories captured and presented in a really respectful and engaging way is quite awesome.”
