Cities need new strategies for conservation and climate change resilience that engage global narrators, unite diverse perspectives and mobilise an increasingly despondent public. This chapter examines community arts as a potential resource for the eco-city, including how incorporating creative perspectives into sustainability communication can open up new ways of thinking about how cities are reimagined for an ecological paradigm. Community arts can provide a unique platform for empowering communities across natural, constructed, economic and cultural systems, thereby contributing to the public's knowledge and care of their local environment. Using a participatory design and theatre-making project as a case study (The Bower Stage, Armidale, Australia, 2016), the chapter demonstrates how incorporating both creative and ecological perspectives can enrich environmental citizenship and connection for the eco-city.

The inclusion of Australia in the Eurovision Song Contest since 2015 is both novel and geographically controversial. Even more striking is the predominance of Indigenous performers, Jessica Mauboy and Isaiah Firebrace, among Australia's first representatives. The choice of performers by Australia's multicultural broadcaster, SBS, can be perceived as an attempt to present Australia as a modern, multicultural, and postcolonial nation, that has achieved the European goal of "unity through diversity", by choosing Indigenous performers along with those from other minority backgrounds, Guy Sebastian and Dami Im. However, a perception of Indigenous marginality from a predominantly non-Indigenous white mainstream Australian viewpoint may not be an accurate perception of how the European audience view an Indigenous identity. Indigenous musical performers articulate identities that confound the non-Indigenous binaries of traditional and contemporary culture, manifesting a cultural identity that is dynamic, both ancient and modern, and uniquely Australian.

Against the 'silence' or 'forgetfulness' of the many massacres of Aboriginal people, the Myall Creek Massacre holds a special place due to its detailed presence in the public record. Rather than simply reasserting the truth of the many massacres, this article then records an attempt to move beyond such denials/assertion. Recording testimony to the spirit of the land, the site of Myall Creek becomes significant for both memorial and for memory.

This chapter explores the history of reconciliation in Australia, the policy framework, obstacles and achievements. It draws on the experience of Julie Collins of Reconciliation in Action at Myall Creek and in the work of the community arts organisation, Beyond Empathy and also shares the experiences of Warlpa Kutjika Thompson, a Wiimpatja, from the western district of NSW. I (Julie) have been collaborating with Warlpa Kutjika Thompson on this chapter on Australian reconciliation and other projects, in an attempt to share power and perspective. Our collaboration has led to many interesting discussions that have deepened my understanding of the complexity of what needs to happen for reconciliation to occur.