Each week, Behind the News (BTN) presenter and proud Gomeroi man Jack Evans greets a million kids across the country with “Yaama” \u2014 the Gamilaroi word for hello.<\/p>\n
“With our audience, I’m always trying to show that you should be proud of who you are and where you’ve come from,” Jack says.<\/p>\n
This year, alongside the greeting, Jack has found a particularly creative way to bring more of his culture and language on screen with him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jack Evans’s T-shirt designs are making a statement. (ABC BTN: Cale Matthews)<\/p>\n
“I came up with the idea to make a shirt each week that included a word from my mob’s language, Gamilaroi or Gomeroi, with a little drawing to go along with it,” he says.<\/p>\n
“As far as we know, I’m the first Indigenous Australian to present the show.<\/p>\n
“Knowing that makes me want to amplify it \u2026 I’m proud of it and I want people to know that.”<\/p>\n
Getting creative<\/p>\n
Each of Jack’s T-shirt designs starts with a Gamilaroi word.<\/p>\n
“Usually I will go online and look at different dictionaries,” he says.<\/p>\n
“I pick one that I think will either look cool or I could draw a picture with.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some designs are quicker to draw than others. (ABC BTN: Cale Matthews)<\/p>\n
While some designs take just an afternoon to draw on his tablet, others might be brewing in the background for weeks.<\/p>\n
“One that sat there for ages was a boot \u2014 just one boot,” Jack says.<\/p>\n
“Then I decided, ‘No, there needs to be two boots, and it needs hairy legs.'”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It took Jack Evans some time to get his boots T-shirt to his liking. (ABC BTN: Cale Matthews)<\/p>\n
With help from his boyfriend, Joel, the designs are then made into vinyl cut outs and heat pressed onto T-shirts.<\/p>\n
“It sort of came from the fact that I had the tools at home to make these shirts and from thinking about what I was going to be wearing each week when I was presenting,” Jack says.<\/p>\n
“I also just thought it was a cool way to sneak a bit of culture into each episode.”<\/p>\n
Language at risk<\/p>\n
Jack did not grow up with any fluent Gamilaroi speakers around him, so this T-shirt project has an added layer of cultural reconnection.<\/p>\n
“My grandma, in order to be protected, was denied her identity, so she was told, ‘You’re white,'” Jack says.<\/p>\n
“It was later in life that she found out things thanks to my auntie, who did a lot of research into our family history and worked out all the connections.<\/p>\n
“She [my auntie] has been really instrumental in bringing back that connection.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jack Evans hopes his T-shirts can play a role in keeping Indigenous language alive. (ABC BTN: Cale Matthews)<\/p>\n
Jack’s aunt and brother have gone on to study Gamilaroi at TAFE in courses that Jack says play a crucial role in preserving and reviving Indigenous languages.<\/p>\n
A 2019 survey found that out of 250 Indigenous Australian languages active prior to colonisation, only 12 were still being actively acquired by children.<\/p>\n
“Indigenous languages are at threat of being lost and a lot of work is done to make sure that our languages stay and they thrive moving forward,” Jack says.<\/p>\n
“So, this [the T-shirts] can be a little part of that, hopefully.<\/p>\n
“If they [the audience] take away just one word, I think that’s great.”<\/p>\n
Students pitch in<\/p>\n
BTN fans have been taking note of Jack’s designs, with some even writing into the show to pitch their own ideas.<\/p>\n
“We had one school who teaches Gamilaroi give me a few suggestions,” Jack says.<\/p>\n
“I ended up using one, which is the magpie.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A BTN fan suggested Jack Evans design a magpie T-shirt. (ABC BTN: Cale Matthews)<\/p>\n
One school said their favourite part of each BTN episode was seeing what T-shirt Jack was wearing that week.<\/p>\n
“For me, it’s about being able to connect myself more with my culture and language, so it’s nice that that resonates with people,” Jack says.<\/p>\n
Asking Jack to choose his favourite T-shirt is like asking him to choose his favourite child.<\/p>\n
“Oh, but they’re my babies,” he says, looking through previous designs before landing on one that is a contender for top spot.<\/p>\n
“I really liked the drag kangaroo.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jack Evans landed on a “drag kangaroo” design. (ABC BTN: Cale Matthews)<\/p>\n
Initially, a kangaroo T-shirt was a request from a school.<\/p>\n
“I had drawn up a kangaroo, and then Joel [Jack’s boyfriend] was like, ‘That looks so menacing! That kangaroo looks terrifying!’<\/p>\n
“So, I was like, ‘OK, how do I make this less terrifying? I’ll turn it into a drag kangaroo, because drag isn’t terrifying!’<\/p>\n
“Now I want to do all the animals as drag.”<\/p>\n
Pride in culture<\/p>\n
Jack plans to see out the year creating original T-shirts each week, with the hope that this representation speaks to the young people who watch BTN.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jack Evans is making a new T-shirt each week. (ABC BTN: Cale Matthews)<\/p>\n
“Everything I do is for my younger self \u2026 you want to be that role model that you didn’t have,” Jack says.<\/p>\n
“Even just coming here [to BTN] \u2014 and realising I was going be on screen and that kids were going to be watching \u2014 it made me want to be more authentic to myself.<\/p>\n
“It’s less about the specifics of the T-shirts themselves, but a way of just showing pride in who you are \u2014 whatever culture, wherever you’re from, however you identify, whatever it is, be proud of it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Each week, Behind the News (BTN) presenter and proud Gomeroi man Jack Evans greets a million kids across…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,154340,460,154342,154341,110654,12618,104106,154338,44,154339],"class_list":["post-263335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-btn-high","tag-design","tag-gamilaraay","tag-gamilaroi","tag-gomeroi","tag-indigenous-culture","tag-indigenous-language","tag-jack-evans","tag-news","tag-t-shirts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}