Themes
Language, kinship and heritage
Language revitalisation and education
Conference Papers
Session CH3.1: Reconnecting urban and remote communities via new technologies
1. Sandy O’Sullivan: Reversing the gaze: Indigenous perspectives on museums, cultural representation and the equivocal digital remnant
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Abstract
The desire to facilitate a reversal of the gaze, by encouraging and empowering Indigenous communities to participate in the active management of their materials, is often framed as an aspiration of the museum space. In addition to exploring potential outcomes for this power-shift, the paper discusses how prepared the mainstream museum is in actively engaging with these communities and in acting as a partner in the process.
Through this lens, the role of new media and digital representations of Indigenous culture and communities are explored to examine the capacity and appropriateness of these materials to be removed, rehoused, reinterpreted and refashioned in the realm of the museum. Who owns the digital remnant? Who controls its use? Is it more appropriately displayed from a community, but accessible to the museum visitor? Will there be another ‘ownership’ struggle over the de-accession of digital remnants when they are all that the museum space holds that represents a community?
Reversing the Gaze will explore the potential for clear partnerships between museums and communities, and will examine the issues at the centre of that engagement around the rights over cultural representation.
Author bio
Dr Sandy O’Sullivan is an Indigenous (Wiradjuri) academic working in intermedia forms and cultural materials management at Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education. Dr O’Sullivan is a current Australian Learning and Teaching Council Fellow, focusing on Indigenous research training and dissemination in new media contexts. In May of 2009 Dr O’Sullivan will be travelling to the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the American Indian to begin a project that examines the management and display of Indigenous digital cultural materials with a view to identifying protocols of practice for Indigenous communities in Australia.
2. Jason Kwok Loong Lee: Digital Community Archive Systems
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Abstract
The digital revolution sweeping the world is reconnecting the urban with the rural, the present with the past, and, the traditional with the modern. In recent years, many projects in Australia and around the world have been developed that could come under a summary description as 'community digital archives', attempting to make the above connections. They are 'community' archives in the sense that they were either developed primarily for the interests of Indigenous community users or adapted for such users. They all involve 'digital archiving' of one or more of the common media types of audio, video and images. These include systems like Ara Irititja, the Mukurtu Wumpurrarni-kari archive, Bidwern, MPI's IMDI Browsable Corpus, the EVIA digital archive, CREDO's Online Digital Sources and Annotation System, the Yurok Language Project, and many others. Some of these systems are no longer being developed. Others are being actively upgraded and developed. This paper broadly surveys and analyses some of the systems that are available.
Author bio:
Jason Lee came to Australia in 1993 from Singapore. He has a First Class Honours in Linguistics from the University of Western Australia where he majored in Anthropology and Linguistics. He worked for two years in the Philippines as a linguist where he edited a dictionary (2000) of the Agusan Manobo language. He has also worked as a community linguist with the Diwurruwurru-jaru Aboriginal Corporation (the Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre) in the Northern Territory. There, he worked with communities such as Bulman, Wugularr and Jilkminggan in Arnhem land, doing work on languages such as Kriol, Dalabon, Rembarrnga, Mayali, Ritharrngu and Mangarrayi. The projects he worked on include a study of the state of Aboriginal languages of the Katherine region (Lee and Dickson 2003) and the Kriol dictionary (Lee 2004). He is currently the OLCAP (Online Language Community Access Program) manager in the language team in the Research section of AIATSIS. He is currently enrolled in a PhD in linguistics at the ANU where he is studying a minority language of Indonesia.
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3. Sharon Heubner: Indigenous knowledge and technology: A digital archive project for Victorian Koorie communities
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Abstract
A raucous laugh permeates the room followed by animated finger pointing knowingly at a young girl standing at the back of a large gathering of school aged children. The girl in the photograph is about 8 years old. The woman sitting at the kitchen table is an Elder, a mother, grandmother and aunty. She calls out to her family and they proceed to spend hours scrolling through images held in a digital community archive sharing stories of her family, her mob, and mission life in Victoria. Digital community archive projects have supported the return of cultural heritage material and knowledge to a number of Australian Indigenous communities. Common threads run through these project’s such as access to government and non government collections, community consultation, cultural protocols related to access, software development and long-term project sustainability. The ability to meld Indigenous knowledge and technology relies on a relationship of trust and a willingness to listen and hear the voices of Indigenous communities. This paper gives voice to some of the complexities of repatriating photographic images, film, manuscripts, cultural artefacts and art objects through the use of stories relating to identity, community and family.
Author bio
Sharon Huebner is a PhD candidate at the Centre of Australian Indigenous Studies at Monash University, Melbourne. Sharon has been involved with the Victorian Koorie community for the past eight years and has been privileged to share and hear stories from Koorie Elders and community members, as part of her work over the years at the Koorie Heritage Trust Inc. and as part of the Trust and Technology Project at Monash University.
4. W. Wanambi, G. Yunupingu, & R. Lane: The Mulka Project: Community media from Northeast Arnhem Land
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Abstract
The Mulka Project responds to community requests for audiovisual documentation throughout Northeast Arnhem land. We provide remote Yolngu communities with media facilities and products to promote, sustain and revive cultural activities. The projects deliver employment and training in media production through culturally relevant workshops on country. The community films form a media library alongside repatriated collections of film, sound and still images recorded of Yolngu in Northeast Arnhem Land. The living archives maintained by Yolngu, for Yolngu provide remote communities with digital access to library services, cultural activities, community events, production workshops, cultural performances, educational materials, research opportunities and training programs. The media service was set-up two years ago by Senior Yolngu artists and is lead by a board of Yolngu elders. The full-time staff range from twenty to fifty - combining traditional scholarship with emerging technical specialties. The freelance staff live in homelands, and are encouraged to participate in recordings directly related to their clan. The media created by the communities of Northeast Arnhem Land serves many roles, but central to them all is sustaining culture. The living library is a dynamic and rich resource on a community level, and can develop with technology to become a National Indigenous Digital Heritage model.
Author bios:
W. Wanambi: Yirrkala resident. Co-Director of the Mulka Project. Leader of his Marrakulu clan. Wanambi’s status as a ceremonial man of his people qualifies him to liaise with other leaders in the Miwatj and to handle sensitive materials. Wanambi won best bark at the 15th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards. The visual art practice can now be seen across bark paintings and video production.
R.Lane: Yirrkala resident. Coordinator of The Mulka Project. BA – Media Studies (RMIT). Registered Teacher. Lane has worked as archivist, producer, director & editor across a range of high-profile educational media projects for broadcasters including the ABC, BBC, ITN, Channel4 and Network Ten before working as Media teacher in the Yirrkala Homelands, implementing a digital video curriculum across a range of schools in the Northeast Arnhem region.
G. Yunupingu: Yirrkala resident. Full-time Mulka employee. Gumatj woman. Daughter of Mandawuy and Yalmay Yunupingu. Every year Yunupingu’s family hosts Garma, which has provided years of training from an early age in the protection and representation of Yolngu culture. Currently, Yunupingu manages the photo database as archivist and translator. She has worked as photographer and designer on a range of Mulka projects and products.