Organised by Annette O'Neill on behalf of the Orange NAIDOC Week Committee, the display demonstrates how heritage and culture has been passed down through generations of one family, with cultural ties across New South Wales, including to the Orange region.

The exhibit features works by renowned artist and author Tex Skuthorpe, a Nhunggabarra man from Goodooga, Nhunggal country in north-western New South Wales, along with works by his children and grandchildren, including Annette, David and Brodie O'Neill and Sandon Gibbs-O'Neill.

NAIDOC Week is a national event celebrated each year in July, but is held in November in Orange due to the often very cold weather in the middle of the year.

This year national events were postponed due to COVID-19 restrictions, so we celebrate along with the rest of Australia.

With its origins in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boycott of Australia Day celebrations in the 1920s and the annual Day of Mourning that emerged during the 1940s, the National Aborigines Day Observance Committee (NADOC) formed in the 1950s and the second Sunday in July became a day of remembrance for Aboriginal people.

Since the early 1990s, the committee has been known as the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee (NAIDOC) and a distinct theme is chosen each year for a week-long celebration of the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

This year's theme, 'Always Was, Always Will Be', acknowledges and celebrates the 65,000-plus years of First People's spiritual and cultural connection to Country and invites all Australians to celebrate our shared history as a country with the oldest continuing cultures on the planet.

Orange Regional Museum's NAIDOC Week 2020 display can be seen from today and runs until December 6, 2020.

Make sure you also visit the local history exhibition 'Inherit: old and new histories' to learn more about Wiradjuri culture and heritage in the region and listen to Elders talking about their experiences growing up on Country and re-settling in Orange.

To find out more about this year's NAIDOC Week celebrations, visit https://www.naidoc.org.au/.

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