The RACGP
Innovate Reconciliation Action Plan

Creation Spirit – Healing Place

The original artwork, Creation Spirit – Healing Place, featured throughout our Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) was designed by Aboriginal design company Gilimbaa. Here’s an introduction to the meaning behind the artwork.  

Smooth iridescent skin caresses the earth, unfolding its many layers. Mounds rise up towards the sky; valleys are created. This is the land you belong to; these are the songs you sing. Thick smoke rises through the fresh morning air. Bodies are adorned for this rite of passage in a place of healing.  

The Rainbow Serpent, the Creation Spirit, moves throughout the land, creating the landscape. It gives people the knowledge and wisdom of the land, ceremony, song, dance and lore – food to eat and medicine to heal. Surrounding the Rainbow Serpent are patterns depicting locations across Australia from the Torres Strait Islands through Queensland across to the Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania. The patterns also refer to carvings, markings, tracks, scarification and body adornments – what is found in the landscape and people’s interpretation of this landscape reflected on their own bodies.  

This artwork also represents the traditional possum skin cloaks worn by the people of the Victorian region. The squares of the checkerboard design represent individual possum skins that are sewn together to form the cloak. Old and new meld. Through this, the RACGP pays its respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia and to the land on which general practitioners learn, teach and practise the art of medicine.  

Acknowledgement of Country

The RACGP acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the land and waterways in which we work and live. We recognise their continuing connection to land, water and culture, and pay our respects to Elders, past, present and emerging.

In this RAP, the RACGP uses the term Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander to describe the First Nations peoples of Australia, unless when referring to an existing organisation, program, or position.  

While this preference has been established in collaboration with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Faculty Council and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Steering Committee, we acknowledge and respect that preferred terminology will differ amongst different communities. While this is our preferred term for general use, we recognise that it falls short in acknowledging or capturing the distinct identities, cultures and nations that exist across Australia.