Brisbane podcast wins top Indigenous category at national awards
Brisbane Yuggera Elder Aunty (Gaja) Kerry Charlton has won the Indigenous Podcast category at the 2024 Australian Podcast Awards on Thursday.
The podcast Bloodlines to Country explores the resilience of Charlton’s ancestors and the challenges they faced in preserving Yuggera culture and language, offering insight into traditions that still shape Brisbane today.
“The world’s oldest living culture has a lot to teach others,” Charlton said on Friday.
Karina Hogan (left) and Jenae Tien Jenkins, the producers of ‘Bloodlines to Country’ with Brisbane Yuggera Elder Aunty (Gaja) Kerry Charlton (centre). The team won the Indigenous Podcast category for this year’s Australian Podcast Awards.Credit: East Coast Studio
“Early Europeans recorded the beauty, richness and abundance of our country and described it rivalled their country estates...[they] then eradicated and nearly caused it all to be extinct.
“I grew up with very old custodians and knowledge holders and don’t want their legacy to become extinct – [it’s] my family, language, culture and heritage.”
Charlton described the award as being “for every Goori who hasn’t yet reconnected to their story” and thanked those involved “for walking with us all in this journey”.
“Knowing we were bringing my Old People’s Story out of the dark shadows into the light of truth telling and healing...that satisfies my spirit and soul,” she said.
The show’s producers, Karina Hogan and Jenae Tien Jenkins, thanked the many organisations and cultural leaders who lent their time and expertise to the podcast.
“A traditional owner and Elder, an Aboriginal woman, an African-American woman and a fully fledged Englishman came together with an idea and an intention to create a piece of work that reflected honesty, healing, repatriation and above all respect and recognition of the Yuggera people, the traditional owners of so-called Brisbane,” they said.
Hogan, a proud Aboriginal and South Sea Islander woman raised in Logan, and Jenkins, an African American-Australian, met while working for the ABC.
‘Bloodlines to Country’ was produced by East Coast Studio in Brisbane. Credit: East Coast Studio
The pair conceptualised Bloodlines to Country in response to the Australian media landscape, a fast-paced environment that they felt often overlooks “fair representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives”.
“After working closely with Aunty Kerry, we realised the need for a more thoughtful and intentional approach to creating and sharing First Nations stories,” Jenkins said.
Hogan added: “For us, this podcast is about unlearning the way stories have been told about First Nations people, a lot of the time without First Nations people.”
The podcast’s win is particularly potent in light of the newly elected LNP government’s decision to pause Queensland’s landmark First Nations Truth-Telling Inquiry.
The purpose of the three-year inquiry was to create “the authoritative record” of European colonisation, in the past and present, with the aim to help lay the groundwork for state-based treaties with First Nations communities.
“The podcast’s importance has only grown in light of this decision,” Hogan said.
“It underscores the critical need for platforms like Bloodlines to Country that prioritise truth-telling and healing, even when political frameworks falter.”
“I think this award demonstrates that every day Australians want truth-telling and Australia wants to hear the true and honest stories of our history in respect and reconciliation,” Jenkins added.