AWAYE! - Separate stories podcast

Is it a monumental tribute to a great man or is it architectural cynicism? A gesture of good will or exploitation? The Barak Tower on the edge of Melbourne's CBD features what purports to be an image of William Barak, the Wurundjeri clan leader, diplomat and renowned artist. Barak's memory is sacred.

A new exhibition about the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in war confronts one of the great silences in Australian history: the brutal history of the frontier.

Throughout her artistic career Judy Watson has been fascinated with the land, its subterranean watercourses, erasure and cultural memory. Another recurring motif is the spilling of blood. The latest recipient of the Australia Council Visual Arts Award is currently working on a public art project about the Tank Stream, an almost mythical watercourse flowing into Sydney Cove that supplied freshwater to the Gadigal - and the newcomers in the first 40 years of the British colony.

Troy Cassar-Daley’s ninth studio album truly speaks of identity. Troy extends an open invitation to all with the song Take a Walk in My Country, and reveals everlasting inspiration from his grandfather’s Akubra in This Old Hat. Pride in identity comes through in the album title and song of the same name Freedom Ride, an ode to the famed student protest led by Charles Perkins back in 1965.

Ursula Yovich has joined the Black Arm Band as they prepare to stage a regional tour of their production dirtsong. Sung in Aboriginal languages from Palawa Kani to Burrarra - Ursula's mother tongue - and inspired by the prose of the Miles Franklin Award winning author Alexis Wright, dirtsong is a big-hearted symphony about country, language and identity.

Vic Chapman was the first Aboriginal person to become a school principal. He is also an accomplished ceramic artist and carver. Though he's retired, once a teacher always a teacher.

When musician Luke Peacock first came across Vic Simms' The Loner, he became obsessed with it. The album - dubbed Australia’s first black protest record - was recorded while Vic was serving time in Bathurst jail. Vic Simms gave his blessing to the project to reinterpret the seminal album of prison ballads which has also been described as a lost classic.

Born with an intellectual disability, armed with an impressive recall memory and a love for science fiction - it’s taken a little while, though Yagan Satour has found what makes him truly happy. It’s theatrical entertainment.

If there’s one mood or emotional state that describes Through The Forest lyrically and musically, it’s drawing towards the light. The singer-songwriter Benny Walker has delivered an accomplished third album. Benny says the new album comes from a darker place and each of the songs is a form of therapy.

Is the right to be who you are - in terms of gender and sexuality - another form of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination? And - does it matter whether or not there’s a precedent for homosexuality and gender diversity in traditional culture? We ask some leading scholars working in the fields of queer and Indigenous studies who met at a symposium recently at the University of Wollongong.