Nunami Sculthorpe-Green leads a group of about 50 people through the streets of Hobart, or nipaluna as it's known in the Tasmanian Aboriginal language palawa kani.
Beneath the city's towering colonial buildings, the 28-year-old explains to the group that Truganini - one of Tasmania's most famous Aboriginal people - used to walk her dogs up and down this very road.
Nunami is giving takara nipaluna, which translates to 'Walking Hobart' in palawa kani. It's a historical tour of the Tasmanian capital she first imagined when she was 19.
"[The tour] follows a group of Aboriginal people in 1832 who were coming to end the Black War and meet with the Governor. It’s designed to make people re-look at the city and get an idea of the history that they can’t see while they’re walking through nipaluna," the palawa/Warlpiri woman tells SBS News.
Nunami leads the tour through nipaluna/Hobart Source: SBS News/Sarah Maunder
The Black War was a period of violent conflict between British colonists and Tasmanian Aboriginal people from the mid-1820s to 1832.
Nunami wants visitors to her tour to have a better understanding of a side of history that's rarely taught.
"I want them to understand how history is created, and the narratives that the colony presents to us every day that we don’t realise," she says.
"I also want them to feel connected to [Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples'] current struggles and our current movements, and want them to support Aboriginal campaigns, realise why we do the things that we do, and hope that they join in."
Nunami says Aboriginal stories aren’t "just history" or "just in the past".
Nunami hopes visitors and locals learn about the state's Aboriginal history through her tour. Source: SBS News/Sarah Maunder
"Those stories connect to all people here today, because the whole foundation of our state is based on our older people’s dispossession and removal from their lands," she says.
"I want [people on the tour] to look at nipaluna differently, and in turn, all colonial cities and even modern cities that are built on Aboriginal land."
takara nipaluna was created in development with Performing Lines Tasmania and first debuted as part of the 10 Days on the Island Festival in 2021.
It's now been picked up by Hobart's Theatre Royal as part of its 2022 program. Six of the 22 remaining scheduled shows have already sold out.
"It’s better than I thought it was going to be," Nunami says.
"I made it because I wanted to know these things, and it was really important to me. The fact that people think it’s important for them to hear has been really great."
Sarah Hamilton is a playwright and was the dramaturg - or theatrical adviser - for takara nipaluna.
Sarah Hamilton was the dramaturg for takara nipaluna. Source: SBS News/Sarah Maunder
"I think it’s incredibly valuable that the Theatre Royal can offer something like this because it is quintessentially part of this landscape. This story is about the ground we’re standing on right here, and I think it’s really exciting to see this space, this venue, hosting Tasmanian stories. I think it’s really important for the future," she says.
"It’s been a total privilege to work with Nunami, and I think that her act of sharing this tour is incredibly generous and that she is a very brilliant human. We’re lucky we get to hear her stories."
Simon Wellington is the chief executive of the Theatre Royal and says it's a "very different thing" for it to be doing.
Simon Wellington is the chief executive of the Theatre Royal. Source: SBS News/Sarah Maunder
"For us to be reaching outside walls of the theatre, taking people out into the streets, really extending that idea of what our conversation is with the city and what we can do as a cultural institution, it is really exciting," he says.
Therese Taylor attended the tour on its debut under the Theatre Royal program and admired Nunami's knowledge and storytelling.
"It was so wonderful to have a young Aboriginal woman take us around to sites that we see every single day in Hobart," she says.
"I walk past these sites every single day, and just to give a history of the Aboriginal people and the original owners of this land, and their use of those sites, it gave me a completely different understanding of how my day-to-day life and how others have used this land."
After takara nipaluna's remaining shows for this year are done, Nunami's not sure what the future of the tour is.
"We'll see how we go at the end of the year," she says.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal language palawa kani only uses lowercase letters.
