In the world of endless on-demand streaming and platforms vying for audiences attentions with the latest series, it can be difficult for our mob’s stories to hold meaningful space.
NITV has launched ‘Muy Ngulayg’, a space a dedicated solely to First Nations story-telling – a streaming hub which will be home to Blak movies, TV series, documentaries and more.
The launch is designed to make it easier for audiences to access the network’s extensive range of First Nations content and continue to drive ongoing audience growth across NITV, which each month reaches 3.3 million Australians on television.
Samuawgadhalgal and Cassowary Clan Artist from Saibai Island, Deborah Balyea, designed the hub’s digital artwork and says the name Muy Ngulayg, a Kalaw Kawaw Ya term, describes a complex and significant concept of inner knowledge.
‘Muy Ngulayg means what a person that's a knowledge keeper sees in you potentially as you're getting older, and they decide when you're right, that they will pass that knowledge on to you.’
‘So it's a very complex term, and I know that a lot of community came up with this term. So the concept is very deep, and it's not to be taken lightly,’ says Balyea.
With the concept that the hub is a place of sharing stories and their responsibilities on to audiences to carry with them, Balyea designed the hub’s visual identity to reflect an important story from her island of Saibai.
‘Instantly my mind went to the legend, the story of Melawel, of Saibai Island he's one of the first men of Saibai, and he arrived on the island via a large Baylor shell.’
‘I depicted in my artwork a large Baylor shell, and there's about five people emerging from that Baylor shell, and they're just a silhouette, there's a lot of loose blue colour around them that highlights their emergence.’
‘The shell is decorated with cultural and totemic linear designs, linear detail as well as the border of the artwork,’ says Balyea.
‘The artwork makes reference to that Saibai legend of Melawel as one of the first people, but it also makes reference to with his arrival, came from the land, our cultural law, our Language and practices, which really reflects that inner knowledge,’ explained Balyea.
Balyea, a digital artist says that in an ever-growing digitised world, how we tell and how we store or stories and knowledges.
‘We’re the world’s first storytellers, and we're still continuing on with that practice today, and it's just we're storing them in a different way.’
‘I think that storage of them is really important, a place to find those stories, a place that's safe, it's culturally safe that our young people and communities can navigate to.’
The Muy Nguluyg hub is a shift in how we interact with content, from consuming content to interacting with Indigenous knowledges and stories.
‘It's our culture in a western format, in a western space, but we've had that authorship behind it.’
‘I think with that comes at responsibility, what important cultural knowledge do we want to hold there for next generation now we've got careful thought behind the telling of those stories and how the young people can take them on,’ says Balyea.
