Charmaine Papertalk Green

Born in Eradu, Charmaine is a proud Wajarri, Badimaya and Wilunyu woman of the Yamaji Nation.

A visual artist, author, poet, photographer, storyteller, social science researcher, and academic, she shares her cultural knowledge in many different spheres. Charmaine has written five books, won several awards including the prestigious Australian Literary Society Gold Medal, and her poetry is studied as part of primary & school curriculum.

Her research has been published in academic journals, her paintings and collages are displayed in exhibitions and museums, and she has contributed to significant Yamaji artistic instillations and moving images productions.

She recently completed her PhD, titled Ngatha Wangga (I Talk). Little Yamaji Woman: Big Yamaji Narratives. Her research was a female Aboriginal emotive autoethnography and included art and poetry woven together by yarning and narrative with the purpose of gaining a deeper understanding of Aboriginal identity, relationships with family, Yamaji culture, and society. Through this, Charmaine explored data sovereignty, culture traumatology, silences, evocative objects, examining colonised spaces including Cultural Interface to challenge the ‘nullius’ concepts controlling and disrupting Aboriginal knowledges.

Involved with the Yamaji Art Centre in Geraldton for over 22 years, she is currently their Chairperson. She was also a speaker at the first Indigenous Astronomy Symposium in Canberra and facilitated Yamaji Astro-Tourism in WA.

Charmaine is devoted to serving the community and does this creatively through an evidence-based lens, with honesty, humility, courage, and deep strength.