One State, many languages

Article | Updated 6 years ago

In the New Museum we are sharing stories from around Western Australia and focusing on the many communities and cultures that make up our State.

As we interview people, we are encouraging people to share stories in the way they would like them told, and in the language that is important to them.

To highlight the importance of language we partnered with the Office of Multicultural Interests (OMI) to develop a video and language resource kit for Languages Week 2018. Both these resources will be used in the New Museum for the Voices gallery.

We interviewed 11 participants from a range of backgrounds who shared their stories about language, family, culture, food and belonging. 

They spoke to us about why it’s important to maintain their language and how expressing themselves in their native language is often more natural than thinking and expressing in English.

They also shared some words from their native language about love, home and belonging.

You can explore the videos and learning kit on our website and the Office of Multicultural Interests website. 

We'd like to thank our wonderful participants; Anna Harrison, Benny Chan, Drisana Levitzke-Gray, Jason Yun, Madison Tran, Razan Qarout, Sandra Harben, Sukjit Khalsa, Suzette van der Heijden, Wahida Samim and Yusuf Atta.