2025 Gadhu Gathering x Awesome Black

Our friends at Awesome Black invited us to design a projected animation for the 2025 Gadhu Gathering Indigenous Rugby League Rounds. Based on the commissioned artwork by Shane Youngberry (Gweagal Clan of the Dharawal Nation and Dunghutti Nation), the animation was projected on the outside of the Allianz Stadium each night during this three-day event in August 2025.

We created 6 x 5-sec stings as well as a 15-sec breaker. Each animated element fused the Rugby League team icons with totems from Shane’s work, such as the Burriburri (Humpback Whale) and Girawaa (Stingray), encompassing and representing the saltwater and Dharawal People of Coastal Sydney. Themes of Country, unity, resilience, community, pride, and people envelope the animation.

Artwork by Shane Youngberry

Shane’s artwork centres on the Burriburri (Humpback Whale), a powerful ancestral spirit of Coastal Sydney, and features the Girawaa (Stingray), a culturally significant sea creature for the Saltwater people of the Dharawal Nation. Interwoven throughout the piece are Indigenous motifs representing meeting places, acknowledging that the area now known as Allianz Stadium—and its surrounds—once served as important gathering sites for Dharawal communities. This work vividly captures the deep and enduring connection between people, ancestral beings, and Saltwater Country.

Artwork by Shane Youngberry, on behalf of the Gujaga Foundation and Dharawal people belonging to the La Perouse Aboriginal Community. 

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Creative Process

Brainstorming and Storyboarding.

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Asset Design Pulled From Artwork

Digitised landscape of Earth, Flora and Waterways

Digitised campfire symbols illuminating Ochre handprints and journey lines that criss-cross the abstract landscape.

The Burriburri (Humpback Whale) and Girawaa (Stringray) showing connection between Dharawal and Dharung waterways.

Isolated team icons and corresponding colours.

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Game Day Insitu