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Art historian Terry Smith explores how Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s work operates between the evolution of Indigenous and non-Indigenous art in Australia. He draws comparisons with the achievements of contemporary European artists.

Art historian Ian McLean offers a view based on the Australian post-colonial experience, arguing that Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s form of modernism is different from international modernism in both source and history.

The art of Emily Kame Kngwarreye and the use of cultural rituals to demonstrate Aboriginal modernity is explored by curator Sally Butler. She also compares Emily’s art practices to 1970s and 1980s modernist design techniques.

Historian John Maynard leads an informal discussion with some of the original political activists from the Indigenous protests of the 1920s and 1930s, as part of the National Museum’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of the 1938 Day of Mourning.

Curator Alison Mercieca tells the story of the Macassan trepang, or sea slug, industry. She considers the places connected by the Macassan voyagers from Indonesia and looks at the archaeological traces left on the Arnhem Land coast.

Historian Mickey Dewar talks about her research into Mindil Beach, Darwin and the ways in which a cultural site intersects with a complex community history and memory, as part of her time with the National Museum’s Centre for Historical Research.

Explore the history of the Papunya painting movement and discover the current generation of Papunya artists at a forum held in conjunction with the National Museum’s Papunya Painting exhibition.

The sometimes life-changing, occasionally hilarious and always vital role of the mutukayi – or motor car – in the history of the people of Australia’s Western Desert is explored by an expert panel with firsthand Papunya experience.

Poet and writer Sam Wagan Watson, historian and Indigenous biographer Peter Read and National Museum curator Margo Neale discuss Indigenous issues and the intersection between historical research and imagination.

The ways the ‘active’ Indigenous voice has changed the representation of Indigenous cultures from urban areas in museums and keeping places is explored by Indigenous artist Gordon Syron, poet Sam Wagan Watson and writer Stephen Hagan.