Galloway Road Ground Mural
Artists: Mike Maka and Harley Ngrakani
Title: Connecting to Country
Artists: Harley Ngrakani and Mike Makatron, 2025
This artwork represents connection with the land, the sea and to each other.
The symbols throughout the mural have meanings in both the Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna cultures:
The Mulloway is a unique local fish that is strongly connected to this part of the country (derived from Malawi – Ngarrindjeri)
The Community Symbols represent men and woman sitting around, teaching our younger generation the ways of the land.
The men sitting with their hunting spears and boomerangs and the women with their clap sticks and digging sticks are the larger coloured symbols, the children are the smaller symbols. The circles represent our rich cultural history being the oldest, living, continuous culture in the world!
The Circles in the sand represent our dreaming stories and Songlines of the land, just as the ancient ways of storytelling would use the sand as a canvas.
The Kaurna shield represents Kaurna as a whole and has north, south, east, and west to help with direction.
The cross hatching represents unity and strength and is symbolic of basket weaving: one strand being weak but multiple strands making it strong and unbreakable.
The hands represent Ngrakani as an artist and a symbol of our ancestors.
Inside the hands children sit united, learning reconciliation and what it means to move forward, together, as one.
The kangaroo tracks represent Tarnda, the big red kangaroo, a strong Kaurna icon, travelling across the land.
The emu tracks connect us to the Tjilbruke dreaming story where it walked the coast before being speared when it was forbidden to spear emus.
Both the kangaroo and emu tracks also represent moving forward in life and keeping hope as both animals never walk backwards.
The small rock pool represents the breeding ground and life cycle of the local Spotted March Frog.
The Creek flowing through the mural is symbolic of Christies Creek winding through the land to the ocean.
This project was funded by the State Government of South Australia and supported by the City of Onkaparinga.