11-07-2025
New 'soul of Port Adelaide' Aboriginal culture centre opens
"I'll play it, then I'll come back and show you how I did it."
The deep, hypnotic sound of one of the oldest instruments in the world fills the room as Otis Carter teaches a group of young boys and teenagers how to circular breathe when playing what's commonly known as the didgeridoo.
"See my cheek with that bubble there, it's pushing a bit of air through," Mr Carter explained.
The lesson is being held as part of a NAIDOC family day at the newly-opened Yitpi Yartapuultiku Aboriginal Cultural Centre on the banks of Adelaide's Port River.
It's a wet and wintry day outside, but inside the place is teeming with hundreds of excited children, dashing between drawing and painting, weaving, play areas and workshops.
A place for Kaurna people to gather and share culture and stories in Adelaide is a dream come true for elders like 95-year-old Lewis O'Brien.
"It started really probably 30 years ago when the old people got together and they said we should have a centre," Uncle Lewis explained.
"Yitpi Yartapuultiku means soul of Port Adelaide and it's turned out to be exactly that … everyone comes here now.
"It's a community centre that everyone feels happy about, a place of wellbeing and reflection, and you can walk the dog and the kids can play on the playgrounds … you've got the sea at the back, you got a dance ground outside, you got places inside."
Yitpi Yartapuultiku Aboriginal Cultural Centre opened on June 1 with a showcase of Kaurna dance, music and culture, alongside a self-guided trail, exhibitions and art and craft stalls.
It is estimated more than 11,000 people flocked to the event, something the centre's CEO Lee-Ann Buckskin said she won't forget.
"I was in-between the two buildings, the breezeway, and I turned around and I just saw this tsunami of people walking towards me, and I just, at that moment, went, 'goodness me the people have spoken'," she explained.
The Port Adelaide Enfield council built the $35.2 million state-of-the-art centre, with the federal government contributing $2.3 million toward a living shoreline at the river bank.
The work includes regenerating the entire area with native plants, including replanting mangroves and reeds endemic to the area. The are also plans for a bush food garden.
The council's Aboriginal Advisory group and Kaurna elders and community were the driving force behind the centre's design and development.
"This place was really chatting for a few years, like five years, I think," Uncle Lewis said.
"We met with the colleges, we met with architects, we met with the council members.
"You don't waste your time by yarning, you make a very productive design when you do a lot of people, discussing with a lot of different people, and bringing those thoughts together and you become unified and develop place like this."
The co-design approach also involved hands-on workshops.
"The architects got kinetic sand and the elders sat around a table and had a sense of this place as flat, but with the kinetic sand built the landscape to how they wanted it to be used," Ms Buckskin added.
"So, what we see are undulating spaces throughout and that is almost wrapped up with beautiful native plants."
Ongoing plans include training in hospitality and tourism, from running conferences at the centre to regular guided tours, along with attracting visitors from the cruise ships that dock in the Port.
"Our hope is that our kids get the opportunity to be able to get some employment through the kitchen, out into the conference space and café," Ms Buckskin said.
"We're really wanting to have a learning environment for people.
"So we'll be looking at offering language classes … a range of different things in terms of artefact making and activities which people are looking for … people booking in classes to learn about native foods."
Ms Buckskin explains Yitpi, as it is affectionately known, is a place for everyone to enjoy while reflecting and supporting Kaurna people and community.
"It's really a place not only for the broader community to be curious and learn around Kaurna culture and broader Aboriginal culture, but it's a place for cultural maintenance," she said.
"And that's really important to our future generations, as in terms of their identity and their cultural practices into the future."
For organisers of the NAIDOC family day, events like these make that vision a reality.
As the winter winds and heavy rain beat against windows that offer a scape to the cultural dance ground, walking paths and the river bank, a young teenager brings the didgeridoo to life — sparking a smile from his teacher.
"I'm just looking around and seeing these kids connected to everything that's happening," organiser Kahlia Miller-Koncz said.
"It makes them stronger in their identity; it makes them feel proud."
For Uncle Lewis, it is a sign of the times.
"We've thought about that for a long time, that we should exchange knowledge," he explained.
"We think people are ready to for change, to think in a different way.
"How did we last 65,000 years? We didn't do it by aimless wandering.
"We did it by beautiful thinking and learning with each other and not be envious of anyone else, just love your own country.
"And I think that's the way we should live in the rest of the world."
