Conference Papers
Session CG3.3 The past and the present: collections and representation
1. Jilda Simpson: Old objects, new stories: collected objects and their role in contemporary Indigenous culture and cultural expression
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Indigenous cultural objects that rest in museum collections can offer their audiences a fascinating glimpse of culture, history and life. They can also offer younger generations a tangible link to their own culture and history - a resource valuable, extensive and accessible. The extensive holdings of Indigenous objects in museums represent a remarkable archive. Objects that represent cultures and communities from a pre-contact era sit alongside objects that are artefacts of Indigenous experience post-contact; often museum collections dynamically represent a history of changing relationships between Indigenous communities, collectors and institutions. This paper is focused on exploring ways in which objects can change, challenge and influence relationships, across generations – from grandmother, to mother to daughter. With increased access to tangible material culture in museum collections, the younger generation can complement their cultural learning from communities and elders with objects, archives, documentation- perhaps an unintended advantage of the meticulous collection and preservation of objects across Australia. Away from the public programs and permanent Indigenous exhibition spaces, Indigenous communities and individuals are accessing museum collections through the ‘back door’ to breathe new life into the objects they discover, and to find new meanings and relevance for these objects in a very different space, time and context. These collections offer contemporary Indigenous communities a valuable resource, this paper aims to explore this by broadly posing the question: What can contemporary Indigenous communities and individuals gain from objects in museum collections?
Author bio: Born in Sydney with roots in the Walgett and Angledool area of Northwest NSW, Jilda Simpson is a Gamilaraay/Yuwaalaraay woman currently undertaking research at the Australian National University in areas relating to Indigenous cultural objects, museum collections, exhibitions and experiences of Indigenous Australians in museum contexts. Jilda's wider research interests lie in contemporary Indigenous communications, the production and performance of Indigenous material culture, the expression of culture through popular media forms and Indigenous treatments of media and new media technologies. Jilda is also proudly one quarter of the singing group ‘Freshwater’. As a group, ‘Freshwater’ connects with their traditional Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta languages of regional NSW/VIC. Through the traditions of language and song, Freshwater celebrates contemporary Indigenous experiences and takes pride in sharing these experiences with audiences far and wide.
2. Barbara Paulson: The Invisible Generation
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How is youth, aged 15-25, represented in the National Museum of Australia exhibitions and collections? In the Museum, youth is often represented through elder’s memory of their youth or within representing community agencies - i.e. youth artworks used for logos or promotions by medical centres, legal centres, ect. . This is not true representation. The voice and representation is different when youth represent themselves and their understanding of their culture and life. An elder remembering what is was like to be a youth is sharing knowledge and experience in an elder’s voice, not a youth’s voice, and within the parameters of understanding and priorities in knowledge of an elder, therefore, not within parameters of understanding and priorities in knowledge of youth. How can the Museum navigate around the established authority of ‘Elders knowledge’ to represent Youth - their culture and their understanding of what they contribute to Australian society? Youth are a significant part of society so why isn’t there a strong presence in the National Museum of Australia? The poor representation of youth in the Museum’s collections is largely based on the misconception that youth are in a state of learning about culture and life, and therefore will have nothing worth sharing or collecting. This is a misconception for two main reasons. Firstly, the Museum collects youth culture ‘in memory’, therefore demonstrating it is worth collecting and sharing. Secondly, the Museum collects children’s art and their representations of culture. Aren’t children in a state of learning? The Museum represents families. Aren’t youth a part of a family’s living dynamic? In this paper I will discuss the ‘whys’ of non- representation of youth in exhibitions and collections and explore the cultural issues and practicalities of addressing this non-representation in the Museum.
Author bio: Barbara Paulson is a Mununtjali / Gungari woman. She is a curator in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander program (ATSIP) at the National Museum of Australia. Barbara has worked and lived in many Aboriginal communities around Australia in differing roles, but as curator she gets to contribute positively to representing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and contemporary lives in Australia. She has worked on many projects including exhibitions such as 70% Urban (2007), Our Community (2005) and she is editor of the bi-annual magazine ‘Goree’, which is produced by the Museum.
3. Gareth Knapman: A century of ethnographic maps: Tracking the political ideologies of ethnographic map making from 1870s to 1970s
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With the recent discovery of the Charles Richards maps of Aboriginal boundaries in South Eastern Australia, there is a new focus on colonial era maps depicting Aboriginal social/political space. Research into ethnographic maps reflects on ways of seeing and interpreting inter-generational connections of and relationship to the land. In doing so, it connects to the key them of Young and Old and generational connections in Aboriginal communities. Compared to other British colonies, the Australian colonies were late comers in the production of maps showing Aboriginal space. It was not until the late nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries when the production of ethnographic and linguistic maps became common. These maps became part of nascent anthropology in Australia. Being drawn as part of ethnographic research, these maps were distinctly different to political maps in North America and Africa that depicted indigenous peoples. Yet they soon when out of fashion. The paper begins to outline distinct waves of map production from the 1870s until 1970s, and focuses on the ideologies behind the creation of these maps. This paper will discuss the impact of these maps on policy across generations.
Author bio: Gareth Knapman is a Fellow at Monash University in the National Centre for Australian Studies. He was formally a curator in the Indigenous Cultures Department at Museum Victoria. Knapman has published articles on the history of anthropology, colonialism and relations between settlers and indigenous peoples within the British Empire. In 2008 he was awarded Museum Victoria’s Thomas Ramsay Science and Humanities Fellowship.