Djidi djidi is Noongar for willy wagtail, a vivacious little native bird which skips around waving its tail. After 20 years of hard work, the Djidi Djidi Primary School for Noongar children held its official opening.

When artist Troy Bennell grew up, he didn't know how to speak Noongar, the language of people from the South West corner of Western Australia. Now, he speaks of his delight at hearing his daughters come home from school speaking the language. "It's awesome," he says. Troy was one of the many parents, friends and helpers who were at the official opening ceremony with the teachers and students.

What had started out as Koala Kindy in 1979 is now a school with over 100 students catering for Kindergarten to Year Seven.As well as having two children at Djidi Djidi, Troy teaches dance and dijeridoo and has contributed art work to the the school environment. These cultural links to the past help create a sense of pride in the students, he says. "The past creates their future.

"Noongar elder Gloria Dann, the Chair of the school board, also speaks of pride. In her speech, she says that there's no more saying poor old Noongar. The dream for a school catering for Aboriginal children began back in 1979 with the Koala Kindy on a site closer to the centre of the regional city of Bunbury. Now Gloria sees high school students using Djidi Djidi for after hours study. "The big kids look after the little ones," says Gloria adding that it's great for the younger ones to see the older students doing their schoolwork.Djidi Djidi is also a focus for the wider Noongar community, says Gloria.

Adults on work experience contribute their time, either as teacher helpers, or in other practical ways. "It's been a long time coming," she says, "many years of work and planning."Listen to the report from Jacqui as she talks to Troy and Gloria and hear the children themselves as they sing their school song Djidi Djidi Koolangka.

For years visitors to the Land Down Under have been dazzled by the abstract paintings made by its desert tribes and have been thrilled to discover a deep significance behind the work—the spiritual connection Aborigines have with the land, its flora and fauna, and the natural elements. Each Aborigine is responsible for "holding" fragments of a complex mythological mosaic known as the Dreaming, the creation stories of how their starkly beautiful land was formed and how its people, plants, and animals came to be as they are today.

Almost 30 years ago, at the settlement of Papunya, about 155 miles northwest of Alice Springs, the contemporary Aboriginal art movement sprang to life. Aboriginal elders, afraid that their culture would be lost, chose to permanently record these ceremonial stories, first on small Masonite boards and later on canvas. Art that had been produced for thousands of years in a ceremonial context, on the body and the ground, would now be seen by the outside world.
By the 1980s Australian museums began to take Aboriginal art seriously, and in the last five years it has achieved worldwide recognition, gallery exhibitions consistently sell out, and an auction market has developed at Sotheby's. According to Aboriginal art expert Tim Klingender, "Works by the most celebrated artists of the '80s and '90s, whose paintings sold not too long ago for a few thousand or even hundreds of dollars, now fetch prices in excess of $60,000." One of the best-kept secrets in contemporary art is secret no more.

Australia presents many opportunities to buy Aboriginal art, but the most exciting way involves going to the Aboriginal communities themselves, which are strung out over a vast stretch of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The most effective way to get there is by light aircraft (Didgeri Air Art Tours is the way to go). This is unquestionably adventure travel, but as Didgeri pilot Helen Read, an English transplant to the outback, says, "From the air, you can breathe in the enormity of this landscape, its geographical intricacies. What you're seeing is the language of Aboriginal painting."

From Kakadu National Park to Darwin extends an area known as the 'top end' of Australia. It is where warm weather, stunning contrasting outback terrain and delicate vegetation and unique fauna merge, to provide an eco-system vacant of modern society, making it another of the great places to stay in Australia.

Water-lilies drift on billabongs, flocks of magpie geese and cockatoos hang suspended in thermal currents, with caves and rock faces embellished in ancient aboriginal art becoming artefacts from an age passed.

Kakadu - owned by the Aboriginal people - covers approximately 20,000 square kilometres of some of Australia's most untamed and alluring wilderness. Scattered with rainforest alcoves, forest swamps and dwarf scrubland, Kakadu is home to some of Australia's most exclusive and rare animal species. However, caution must be taken when exploring this magnificent expanse because the crocodiles that also live here are occasionally prone to chewing on the odd foolish tourist who doesn't follow their tour guide's safety instructions!

Australian Indigenous art is the oldest ongoing tradition of art in the world. Initial forms of artistic Aboriginal expression were rock carvings, body painting and ground designs, which date back more than 30,000 years. Art has always been an important part of Aboriginal life, connecting past and present, the people and the land, and the supernatural and reality.
Aboriginal art has come to the forefront of Australia’s national identity in recent years, celebrated by Australians and the world in the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympic games.

The prominence of Indigenous art is due in part to the motivation and considerable effort of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, particularly painters, who have played a major role in introducing both Australia and the rest of the world to Australia's Indigenous cultures. Indeed, the country’s Indigenous artists have had a major impact on the art world with exhibitions in major galleries around the globe.The quality and variety of works produced reflects the rich and diverse culture with works mirroring the distinct differences between tribes, languages, dialects and geographic landscapes. Indigenous arts and crafts express the artists' sense of place, connection to land, their history, experiences and respect for law and culture.

Indigenous art and cultural expression ranges across a wide variety of mediums from paintings, works on paper, canvas, sand, wood, stone, metal, eggs, shells, fibre and in glass, using ochre, acrylic and polymer paints, gouache, charcoal, water colours, and silver gelatin.
The story of the way these art forms runs parallel to the history and experiences of the artists themselves. It reflects customary trading patterns, a struggle for survival and the influence of governments and churches.

A market in Indigenous artefacts has existed between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples since they first came into contact. Non-Indigenous trading and exploration parties such as those headed by Matthew Flinders in the early 1800's actually came in search of artefacts because of their innate beauty and ethnographic value. The French explorer Nicolas Baudin and his botanist Francois Péron sailed to Australia under strict instructions from Emporer Napoleon Bonaparte to in the first instance seek and exchange artefacts.

After a hundred years of colonisation, artefact production for the purposes of sales had begun to occurr on a wide-spread basis throughout south-eastern Australia . The practice of making art works allowed tribes people to pass on knowledge about country and culture and sales provided economic support for many Indigenous families forced to live on government mission stations in the Bass Strait, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. This is reflected the award winning organisations, the Koori Heritage Trust in Victoria and Queensland Indigenous Arts Marketing and Export Agency (QIAMEA) .

Today, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art has become internationally accessible, recognised as fine art as well as being utilitarian and decorative, with the Western Desert art movement recognised as one of the most significant art movements in twentieth century art. In 2004 there were about 96 art and craft centres across Australia, in all states and regions, encompassing urban, rural and remote communities which provide one of the main avenues of support for Indigenous artists.

Indigenous art has embraced technology and new media. Indigenous Art Online (cyberTribe) and Maningrida art and culture are but two examples. There are also many galleries and exhibitions of Indigenous Art on the Internet, which have enhanced the international popularity and awareness of Aboriginal and Torres Trait Islander art.