Tiriki Onus

Tiriki Onus is a Yorta Yorta and Dja Dja Wurrung artist, academic and Head of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development and co-director of the university’s Research Unit in Indigenous Arts and Culture at the University of Melbourne. He is a successful visual artist, curator, performance artist and opera singer. His first operatic role was in the premiere of Deborah Cheetham’s Pecan Summer in October 2010. He received the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust’s Harold Blair Opera Scholarship in 2012 and 2013. In 2014 Tiriki was awarded the inaugural Hutchinson Indigenous Fellowship at the University of Melbourne, working with numerous Indigenous communities to revitalise traditional technologies of Biganga (possum skin cloak) creation. Most recently, Tiriki co-directed the feature documentary Ablaze which premiered at the 2021 Melbourne International Film Festival to great acclaim. The documentary uncovers a film made 70 years ago by Tiriki’s grandfather, William Bill Onus, an important leader in the Aboriginal rights movement.