Engagement and Impact 2018

The Australian National University

ANU21 (CAH) - Impact

Overview

Title

(Title of the impact study)

Reconnecting Indigenous Australian communities with heritage objects held in and galleries

Unit of Assessment

21 - History and

Additional FoR codes

(Identify up to two additional two-digit FoRs that relate to the overall content of the impact study.)

16 - Studies in Human Society

Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) Codes

(Choose from the list of two-digit SEO codes that are relevant to the impact study.)

90 - Commercial Services and Tourism

Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) Codes

(Choose from the list of two-digit ANZSIC codes that are relevant to the impact study.)

89 - Heritage Activities

Keywords

(List up to 10 keywords related to the impact described in Part A.)

Museums

The Australian National University Engagement and Impact 2018 PDF Created: 6/03/2019 Page 1 of 7 Indigenous Collections

Indigenous History

Indigenous Art

Cultural Heritage

Tourism

Sustainable cultures

Sensitivities

Commercially sensitive

No

Culturally sensitive

No

Sensitivities description

(Please describe any sensitivities in relation to the impact study that need to be considered, including any particular instructions for ARC staff or assessors, or for the impact study to be made publicly available after EI 2018.)

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research flag

(Is this impact study associated with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content? NOTE - institutions may identify impact studies where the impact, associated research and/or approach to impact relates to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, nations, communities, language, place, culture and knowledges and/or is undertaken with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, nations, and/or communities.)

Yes

Science and Research Priorities

(Does this impact study fall within one or more of the Science and Research Priorities?)

No

The Australian National University Engagement and Impact 2018 PDF Created: 6/03/2019 Page 2 of 7 Impact

Summary of the impact

(Briefly describe the specific impact in simple, clear English. This will enable the general community to understand the impact of the research.)

Reconnecting Indigenous Australian communities with heritage objects held in museums and galleries globally is key to building sustainable communities. The removal of historic objects to museums (nationally and internationally) has made accessing these collections difficult for Indigenous communities from rural and remote areas of . Projects between ANU, industry partners and Indigenous stakeholders have re-connected Indigenous communities to moveable cultural heritage collections stored in metropolitan and municipal museums and galleries globally. They have brought Indigenous Australian communities into direct contact with their cultural artefacts and facilitated new relationships between source communities and staff tasked with managing and curating these collections.

Beneficiaries

(List up to 10 beneficiaries related to the impact study)

Bandjin, Djiru, Erub, Girramay, Gudang , Gugu Badhun, Gulnay, Jirrbal, Magan, Meriam Mer, Minanga, Nywaigi and Tiwi QLD Aboriginal and TSI communities

The Wangkangurru, Warrgamay, Warungnu, Yarluyandi; Yidinji and Yirandali Abiriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in QLD

The Dja Dja Wurrung, Gulidjan, Gunditjmara, Kirrae Whurrong and Wadawurrung Aboriginal communities in Victoria.

The , Bundjalung, , and Wandi Wandian, Port Jackson and Aboriginal communities in NSW.

The Kaurna Miyurna and Dieri Aboriginal communities in South Australia and and Yolngu Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory.

The Bununba, Gooniyandi, Kidji, Menang, Noongar, Walmajarri and Worrorra Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.

The and Ngunawal Aboriginal communities in the ACT.

The Flinders Island and Oyster Cove Aboriginal communities in Tasmania.

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The National Museum of Australia,

The , London

Countries in which the impact occurred

(Search the list of countries and add as many as relate to the location of the impact)

England Scotland Wales Ireland Northern Ireland Australia United States of America

Details of the impact

(Provide a narrative that clearly outlines the research impact. The narrative should explain the relationship between the associated research and the impact. It should also identify the contribution the research has made beyond academia, including: - who or what has benefitted from the results of the research (this should identify relevant research end-users, or beneficiaries from industry, the community, government, wider public etc.) - the nature or type of impact and how the research made a social, economic, cultural, and/or environmental impact - the extent of the impact (with specific references to appropriate evidence, such as cost-benefit-analysis, quantity of those affected, reported benefits etc.) - the dates and time period in which the impact occurred.

NOTE - the narrative must describe only impact that has occurred within the reference period, and must not make aspirational claims.)

From 2002 to 2016 ANU research found new ways to connect Indigenous communities to cultural heritage collections held in museums and galleries globally. This enabled stakeholders from over 50 Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander communities to re-connect with significant historical collections held off-country. Source communities have been revitalised by re-engaging with museum collections stimulating inter-generational knowledge transfer, inspiring the production of new art and artefacts, and engendering a greater sense of connection to ancestral country, and improving custodianship over tangible and intangible cultural heritage. New connections between communities and collecting institutions have generated important counter-narratives to contemporary museum discourses and have led both source communities and museum communities to re- evaluate historic cultural understandings associated with these objects. Local voices and data have been added to museum and gallery exhibitions/collections. Cultural protocols for the display of moveable heritage have empowered communities and opened up dialogue about repatriation.

This impact has been captured in the development of collections-based research and collaborative exhibitions with industry partners such as the British Museum (BM) in London and the National Museum of Australia (NMA) in Canberra, which have allowed the public to engage more directly with Indigenous Australian cultures. ANU researchers wrote interpretive text labels, led collaborative workshops and meetings with communities and advised on exhibition content.

One project involved a partnership between ANU researchers and the NMA and the BM, in collaboration with Indigenous research participants and over 30 Indigenous communities. It centered on the development process leading up to two major exhibitions based around the BM’s Australian Indigenous collections. The first exhibition, ‘Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisations’, was held at the BM and ran 23 April to 2 August 2015. The second, ‘Encounters: Revealing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects from the British Museum’ was at the NMA.

The Australian National University Engagement and Impact 2018 PDF Created: 6/03/2019 Page 4 of 7 This was the first time that contemporary Indigenous people in Australia had the opportunity to contribute to interpreting the BM’s collection of Australian material in an international exhibition. Community workshops and field visits over a period of 4 years brought indigenous stakeholders from the 30 communities into direct consultation with the staff of the BM and the NMA. This allowed both the stakeholder and the researcher communities to re-evaluate and enrich the historic cultural understandings associated with these objects.

The research emphasised the cross-cultural interactions involved in the circumstances of the original collection of the objects chosen for display, and the effects of the re-connection of those objects with their source communities through the exhibition process. This created public awareness of these stories as part of Australian Indigenous history and as part of the ongoing processes of reconciliation. Beneficiaries included the 30 Indigenous communities involved in the project/exhibitions; visitors to the two exhibitions and the wider polity engaged through the conversations prompted by the exhibitions and associated events.

The exhibition stimulated nation-wide debate on the legacies of colonial collecting. Between 27 November 2015 and 20 March 2016 the Encounters exhibition received 88,567 visitors. Between October 2015 and March 2016, the NMA posted 351 times across its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. These posts were seen over 1 million times with over 169,000 engagements. The exhibition was recognised by the heritage and tourism industry through a number of awards including: the Museums and Galleries National Award (MAGNA) for Best Major Temporary Exhibition in 2016 and the MAGNA Co-Winner of the Best Museum Project Overall.

In 2016 the Director of the BM praised the project and exhibition as an exemplar for other BM projects. The Director of the NMA, Dr Trinca, reflecting on the ‘Encounters’ exhibition in The Australian (March 18 2016), stated that it was “unprecedented in the cultural life of the nation”: “[N]o other museum exhibition ... has involved such extensive engagement across the country ... The exhibition … foregrounds the voices of people from the Indigenous communities alongside the historical artefacts. Together, they speak eloquently of the challenging histories of colonisation, and the devastating losses experienced by the nation’s First Peoples. This project is ... developing a new way of speaking about our past ... that allows us to look honestly at our history, good and bad, as well as celebrating the manifest and varied achievements of the modern Australian nation state.”

Other impacts included a 2016 international conference, organised jointly by the NMA and the ANU, of Indigenous Australian stakeholders and Indigenous representatives from the US, Canada, New Zealand, Scandinavia and Taiwan to discuss strategies for better connecting Indigenous communities and museums.

Associated research

(Briefly describe the research that led to the impact presented for the UoA. The research must meet the definition of research in Section 1.9 of the EI 2018 Submission Guidelines. The description should include details of: - what was researched - when the research occurred - who conducted the research and what is the association with the institution)

The research aimed at finding better pathways to connect Indigenous source communities with their moveable heritage housed in cultural collecting institutions (museums, galleries, libraries and archives as well as specialist institutions such as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies and the ANU Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research. These collaborative projects have opened up greater dialogue and exchange between Indigenous and non-indigenous experts and institutions in Australia and overseas.

The research was conducted between 2006 and 2017. It was conducted as part of a series of ARC Linkage and Discovery grants led by ANU researchers including: Joseph Gumbala, Louise Hamby, Mary Hutchison, Diana James, Howard Morphy, Marianne Riphagen, Maria Nugent, and Gretchen Stolte—working with non-ANU academics and museum scholars including: Philip Batty, Lissant Bolton, Ian Coates, Aaron Corn, Philip Jones, Josephine McDonald, Mary Morris, Fred Myers, Margo Neale, Libby Robin, June Ross, Gaye Sculthorpe, Michael Smith, Mathew Trinca, and Peter Veth.

FoR of associated research

(Up to three two-digit FoRs that best describe the associated research)

16 - Studies in Human Society 21 - History and Archaeology

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(This section should include a list of up to 10 of the most relevant research outputs associated with the impact)

Gaye Sculthorpe; John Carty; Howard Morphy; Maria Nugent; Ian Coates; Lissant Bolton & Johnathan Jones. 2015. Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation. London: British Museum Press.

National Museum of Australia.2015. Encounters: Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum. Canberra: National Museum of Australia Press.

Sarah Carter and Maria Nugent (eds), 2016. Mistress of Everything: Queen Victoria in Indigenous Worlds. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Makers and Making of Indigenous Australian Museum Collections, N. Peterson, L. Hamby and L. Allen (eds), Melbourne University Press, 2008.

Howard Morphy. 2012. ‘Epilogue: The recognition of Aboriginal art and the building of collections’. In Sandra Dudley, Amy Barnes, Jen Binnie, Julia Petrov, and Jenny Walklate (eds.) Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories: essays in honour of professor Susan M. Pearce. Abingdon: Routledge. Pp. 271-282.

Howard Morphy. 2015. 'Meaningful Form: the changing boundaries between anthropology and art history'. In G. Ulrich Grossmann, Petra Krutisch (ed.), CIHA2012 Nuremberg: The Challenge of the Object / The challenge of the object. Germanischen Nationalmuseums, Germany. Pp. 1500-1504.

Howard Morphy. 2016. 'Open Access Versus the Culture of Protocols'. In Raymond A Silverman (ed.), Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges. Routledge, Abingdon and New York. Pp. 90-104.

Morphy, Howard. 2016. ‘The Displaced Local: Multiple Agency in the Building of Museum’s Ethnographic Collections’. In Kylie Message and Andrea Witcombe (eds.), The International Handbook of Museum Studies, vol 1, Museum Theory. Wylie Blackwell. Pp. 365-387.

Louise Hamby. 2013. ‘Pathways to Knowledge: research, agency and power relations in the context of collaborations between museums and source communities.’ In Byrne, S.; Clarke, A.; Harrison, R.; Torrence, R. (eds.), Unpacking the Collection: Networks of Material and Social Agency in the Museum. New York: Springer. Pp. 209-229.

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Additional impact indicator information

(Provide information about any indicators not captured above that are relevant to the impact study, for example return on investment, jobs created, improvements in quality of life years (QALYs). Additional indicators should be quantitative in nature and include: - name of indicator (100 characters) - data for indicator (200 characters) - brief description of indicator and how it is calculated (300 characters).)

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