CDU Faculty of Arts and Society

🌿🎨 HDR Day Out – Brains in the Wild 🎨🌿

Today, our HDR students took a well-deserved pause from their research journeys and stepped into the beautiful surroundings of George Brown Botanical Gardens for a morning dedicated to creativity, connection, and wellbeing 🌿🎨🍃.

As researchers, it's easy to become immersed in deadlines, data, and discoveries. “Brains in the Wild” was designed to create space to slow down, recharge, and reconnect with nature, with one another, and with the creative side of ourselves that often inspires new ideas 🤩.

Guided by David from Paint and Create Darwin, our HDR students embraced the opportunity to swap laptops for paintbrushes during a relaxing and engaging painting session. It was a wonderful reminder that some of our best ideas emerge when we take a moment to step away and simply enjoy the process 🎨👨🏼‍🎨.

A special thank you to David at Paint and Create Darwin for facilitating such an enjoyable experience, and to The Botanic Gardens Catering Company for the delicious food and warm hospitality that made the day even more memorable ✨.

Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make this event such a success. Here's to fostering a vibrant HDR community where wellbeing is valued just as much as research excellence 🍃🤩.

🔥 Australia’s second‑largest fire year in a decade — new national report released

Australia has just experienced its second largest fire year in the past decade, according to the inaugural NAFI Fire Year Summary Report 2025 — the most comprehensive national fire mapping analysis ever produced.

The report, led by the North Australia and Rangelands Fire Information (NAFI) service based at CDU, reveals the scale of 2025’s fire activity, the impact of severe late‑season conditions, and how First Nations rangers and land managers are using world‑leading data to reduce the severity of fires across the country.

Key insights include:
• 29.6 million hectares burnt in the Northern Territory
• Multiple “Terra” scale fires over 1 million hectares
• A 3.5‑million‑hectare fire in the Tanami Desert lasting 28 days
• Unprecedented rainfall increasing fuel loads across northern Australia

This new annual report offers a detailed look at how fire shapes our landscapes — and how proactive, Indigenous‑led fire management is making a measurable difference.

👉 Read the full story and explore the data

Inaugural national fire report highlights extent of ‘second largest’ fire year in the past decade | Charles Darwin University An inaugural report from Australia's most comprehensive and detailed fire mapping database has found 2025 to be the second largest fire year in the past decade, driven by severe weather and storm-related ignitions.

✨ Bringing campus spaces to life! ✨

For the first time ever, Charles Darwin University is part of the Darwin Street Art Festival — and our Casuarina campus is about to transform in the most colourful way.

Three incredible artists, including our very own Larissa Pickalla, are creating new public murals across campus. Larissa’s piece on the Orange 1 building marks her first public mural, celebrating movement, connection, and First Nations perspectives through vibrant abstract design.

This collaboration brings art, culture, education, and community together — making our campus feel even more alive and connected to Darwin.

🎨 Want to see how CDU is joining one of the Territory’s most loved creative events?
👉 Read the full story here:

Bringing campus spaces to life: CDU joins Darwin Street Art Festival for first time | Charles Darwin University Charles Darwin University’s Casuarina campus will become part of the Darwin Street Art Festival for the first time, with three artists transforming campus spaces through new public murals.

The surprising city claiming to be Australia's street art capital Artists say Darwin has surpassed Melbourne as Australia's street art capital, with work underway on a fresh round of murals across the Top End city.

A CDU business unit is getting a fresh redesign to better prepare students for today’s fast-moving workplace, where adaptability, communication and real-world experience matter just as much as academic knowledge. The core first-year unit MAN105 – Introduction to Management has been redeveloped as part of a broader initiative to boost graduate employability and strengthen the transition from study to career.

This update comes in response to findings from the Jobs and Skills Australia 2025 Report, which highlights common challenges graduates face when stepping into the workforce — including gaps in teamwork, professional communication, problem-solving, and access to practical experience. To help address this, CDU academics Dr Jianhua (Jane) Zhang and Dr Roopali Misra led a collaborative industry consultation with 15 professionals from across different sectors, alongside CDU Careers and Work-Integrated Learning teams.

Their insights are now shaping a more applied, future-focused learning experience, with students engaging in real-world scenarios across sustainability, AI, globalisation, diversity, leadership and organisational change. As Dr Zhang noted, strong industry partnerships are key to ensuring students are learning what employers actually need — and this is just the beginning of deeper collaboration beyond the classroom.

Read more about how CDU is building job-ready graduates here:

Business unit refresh to adapt to rapidly changing workplace | Charles Darwin University The redevelopment of a unit in Charles Darwin University’s business program will give graduates the skills, confidence and industry awareness to thrive in today’s rapidly changing workplace.

Celebrating the incredible achievements of our students at the CDU Faculty of Arts and Society Awards. ✨

We are incredibly proud to acknowledge:

🏆 Leela Kruger
Recipient of the Outstanding Academic Achievement in the Remote Aboriginal Teacher Education (RATE) Program Award

🏆 Erini Tsavaris
Recipient of the Outstanding Achievement in Aboriginal Education by a Northern Territory Student Award

These awards recognise the dedication, resilience, leadership, and commitment our students continue to demonstrate throughout their educational journeys. Their achievements are a powerful reflection of the strength and future of First Nations education and community leadership across the Northern Territory.

Congratulations Leela and Erini on this well-deserved recognition. We celebrate your hard work and look forward to seeing the positive impact you will continue to make in education and community. 👏✨

🌏🎨 When art meets science, climate change becomes something you can feel — not just measure.

A Charles Darwin University Charles Darwin University research project is rethinking how we understand climate impacts by using “art as evidence” alongside traditional data. Led by researchers from CDU’s Northern Institute Northern Institute, including Research Fellow Sharna Motlap and Professor Linda Ford, the Climate Impacts on Country exhibition brings together seven First Nations artists from Darwin and Mackay to share lived experiences of a changing climate — through Country, culture, and creativity.

From disappearing footprints on familiar beaches to coral bleaching and shifting ecosystems, each artwork tells a powerful story of what climate change means for First Nations communities on the ground. As the artists show, this is about more than environmental data — it’s about loss, connection, resilience, and protecting what we love for future generations.

👉 Read more about the exhibition, the artists, and the research behind it on our website:

Using ‘art as evidence’: Climate change research on display at CDU | Charles Darwin University A Charles Darwin University (CDU) research project exploring the impacts of climate change used “art as evidence”, alongside traditional data, to convey the lived experience of First Nations communities in relation to this global crisis.