Journeys

This ‘Journey Stories’ is an Arts in Health initiative of the Mid North Coast Health Local Health District and Health Infrastructure celebrating diversity and sharing the moving stories of how refugees and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities came to call Coffs Harbour home.
Artist Jay Black and social worker Jude Dardel along with multicultural leaders led a community co-design approach collaborating with interpreters and young people across three local schools, supported by STARTTS Youth, to deliver a trauma-informed arts program that reflects their journey.
Together they shaped the development of the project which led to dozens of community-led cultural events that were documented in exhibition format and a short film on display in the health campus celebrating their collective cultures.
The Journey Stories project includes a portrait series of 12 photographs by Jay Black, 10 student artworks and stories, plus a short film including original score by three musicians who had never collaborated prior to recording their song - Bobby Singh, Ali Hasan, and Marko Kisoe. In different languages, they composed, sang and recorded the song within hours of meeting each other through the common language of music.