Fierce Girls is celebrating First Nations women who Get Up! Stand Up and Show Up! As Australia celebrates NAIDOC week in July, we’re putting the spotlight on seven fierce Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.

This episode is about Yukultji Napangati: the girl who made her world shimmer. Listen to the full podcast.

Yukultji Napangati grew up with no contact with the outside world. Just her and her family, living on a shimmery salt lake. She learned how to live on Country, how to find food, water, and shelter. She was a particularly great hunter.

When she turned 14, everything changed. She saw her first other humans, and saw a car for the first time.  She had been brought to live with other people from her mob, and here she found out she was really good at something else too, painting. It used to be men’s only business, but by the time Yukultji picked up her first paintbrush, it was something women in her community would do too.

Her stroke was unique. It was special. It made her work shimmer just like the salt lake she grew up on. And her paintings now hang on the walls of some of the most famous people in the world.

Narrated by artist Atong Atem.

Download the education resource [PDF] to guide learning activities and classroom questions.