“Who’d Have Thought?”: Unravelling Ancestors’ Hidden Histories and Their Impact on Dharug Ngurra Presences, Places and People

As a means of opening the lid on transgenerational silencing—which was survival strategy for thousands Indigenous families against intended cultural genocide—while balancing place auto/biography in that journey, this paper focuses impact Ancestors’ hidden histories and how discovery those drives complex identifications when woven with Presences, places, people Dharug Ngurra/Country. Using my own family’s recently uncovered early colonial Ancestral storying, involve traditional custodian, African slave, Anglo characters, some as First Fleet arrivals, considers form agency brings past into presence, which, turn, opens opportunities to heal, decolonise, transform and, more broadly, communities, their knowledges, practices, ontologies. When activation involves most metropolis known Sydney, Australia, we recognise its transformative potential change non-Indigenous people’s perspectives. ‘truth-telling’, it allows space re-story relationality, both human other-than-human, restores presence Ngurra biodiverse justice climate-changing world. Addressing these matters through poetic multimedia safety between pain healing.