‘Know Your Power.’ Zaachariaha Fielding on Paraulpi and NAIDOC Week
June 11, 2026
Zaachariaha Fielding is a Yankunytjatjara artist and musician from Mimili community on the APY Lands and lead vocalist of Electric Fields. Zaachariaha was named the 2026 National NAIDOC Week Poster Competition winner for his work Paraulpi.
You’re a Yankunytjatjara person from the APY Lands, an artist, a musician and a Eurovision performer who’s taken Australian culture to a global stage. Where did it all start for you?
My first performance ever was at Quorn Area School. I was about seven and I sang a song called Blue Suede Shoes by Elvis. That was my first ever moment performing in front of an audience. I think at that point I knew this was going to be my life and it was going to be interesting. Operating from a creative tapestry led me to the present world where I am the lead vocalist for Electric Fields and a visual artist from APY Lands. They’re coexisting beautifully for me. I’m learning, I’m evolving and I’m growing. There’s a lot of lessons to learn through it.
Can you tell us about your artwork Paraulpi?
The painting is sound, the sound of Paraulpi. It is the melodies that the Elders would sing for the dancers to do the traditional dance. You would always have your mentor and it would always be someone older, and they would follow with the rhythm to the music. That’s what the work is. It’s a performance of what all the generations are doing. It especially guides the innocents, the children. The Elders do it with such care.
What does this year’s NAIDOC Week theme, ‘50 Years of Deadly’, mean to you?
Right now, it’s just reflecting on what happened in the last 50 years for [First Nations peoples] to even get here, with the opportunities, understanding the art of resilience, of what we are and how we are. We should be proud of living in two different worlds as blakfellas. This continent already had its own model. Trying to build that bridge psychologically in the last 50 years and understanding the work that was put into it. There’s heaps more to do, but just in learning how we got here is something that I’m going to sit with this year.
How does it feel knowing Paraulpi is about to be seen all over Australia for NAIDOC Week?
I just hope what people take away from Paraulpi is to be grateful for where you come from and understand the strengths and the weaknesses of it, and then what you do with it in the present. Your lineage will be proud of you either way. I want people to just see the work and be sure of [themself], because it’s a very attractive quality to have when you know your power, you know your worth, you know your strength. And to meditate with it, or whatever you’ve got to do, but then come back into yourself and navigate carefully and look for your peace.
What conversations would you want Paraulpi to start in the classroom?
Just enjoy your relationship with your best friend, and usually it’s your grandmother and your grandfather. Study everything, listen to what they’ve got to say, because you’re great. You’re also healing your kami and your tjamu, your grandmother and your grandfather. Your presence is important, and they also need to know how to nurture you. For that bond to be as powerful as it can be, it will have no limits.
What’s one thing, a book, a song, or an artwork you’d put in front of every student in Australia right now?
Whitney Houston, My Love Is Your Love. I love it. I love Whitney’s voice. It’s the tone, but the messaging of the lyrics and the delivery of that song is like a songline in itself.
It means my internal me and the external me can have that bridge. There will be no hurdles. It’s just a direct love for inward and outward, the love for nature, the love for your peers, the people that you are in relationships with, whether that’s in love, romance, whether that’s in your work, but just building that relationship for you so you know your route on what your orbit is.
Learn more about Zaachariaha’s winning poster on the NAIDOC website.
A podcast of the full interview with NITV Radio’s Kerry-Lee Barry will be available soon.
Visit SBS Learn’s NAIDOC Week teacher resource for lesson ideas, classroom activities from Early Childhood to Year 10.
