PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
- Participate in Australian Research Council (ARC) projects.
- Initiate new research projects, including in partnership with other institutions.
OUR TARGETS
- Five continuing ARC projects.
- Six new research projects initiated.
WHAT WE ACHIEVED
- Museum researchers participated in eight continuing ARC projects.
- The Museum exceeded its target of initiating six new research projects and partnerships, and continued to contribute to ongoing research activities.
Analysis
Museum researchers continue to contribute to and be invited to participate in new research projects and partnerships across the cultural and academic sectors.
Participation in ARC projects
Museum staff participated in eight ARC projects during 2018–19:
‘The Aboriginal History Archive’, 2017–19
(Victoria University, Deakin University, University of Newcastle, University of Technology Sydney, University of Melbourne, Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, University of Exeter, University of Waikato and Old Parliament House)
The focus of this project is the creation of an online archive dedicated to recording the histories of self-determination, land rights, and community survival programs of Aboriginal communities in Australia. The project seeks to record the contemporary perspectives and voices of Aboriginal participants, including primary source material donated by individuals and community organisations. The archive is working to address a gap in Australia’s understanding of the political, legal, health and social position of Aboriginal communities in Australia.
‘DomeLab: An ultra-high resolution experimental fulldome’, 2015–20
(University of New South Wales, University of Western Sydney, RMIT University, University of Canberra, University of Western Australia, University of Tasmania, City University of Hong Kong, Museums Victoria, Australian National Maritime Museum, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, AARNet Pty Ltd and Intersect Australia Ltd)
The DomeLab project pilots the first ultra-high resolution experimental fulldome in Australia and is the technology that underpinned the Dome experience in the Museum’s Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters exhibition. The facility provides a powerful immersive video projection environment, resulting in a low-cost display system with innovative aesthetics and content delivery. The project explores three themes at the forefront of new museology: interactive media, future museology, and experimental and digital humanities.
‘Heritage of the air: How aviation transformed Australia’, 2017–20
(University of Canberra, University of Sydney, Australian National University, University of New South Wales, Airservices Australia, Civil Aviation Historical Society and SFO Museum)
Civil aviation has transformed Australian society over the past 100 years, and the focus of this project is on investigating the people, rather than the planes, to tell the broader story of Australian communities and aviation, including Indigenous people and communities. The project seeks to build a partnership between the aviation industry, community groups, museums and multidisciplinary scholars to develop insights into aviation heritage. Stories will be told through heritage archives and institutional collections to produce exhibitions, accessible digital collections and publications, as a way of conserving this part of Australia’s social and cultural history.
‘Localising the Anthropocene: Understanding Australia in the age of humans’, 2016–18, extended to 2019
(University of Sydney, Australian National University, University of New South Wales, American Museum of Natural History, University of Leicester and University of Wisconsin)
This project aims to narrate how human interventions have come to transform Australian environments, and show the history and impact of humans on continental and ocean environments. By examining the role museums can play in making sense of Australia’s experiences during a period of rapid planetary change, this project moves away from an abstract understanding of these issues, to use objects, performances, stories and art to make real the local dimensions of the idea of the Anthropocene. As part of the project, Museum staff have contributed to the Everyday Futures website and forthcoming publication, and supported public programming and events.
‘A new theory of Aboriginal Art’, 2015–18
(University of Wollongong)
This project aims to re-evaluate Aboriginal art practices from the contemporary art perspective of relational art and transculturalism. It looks to revive an industry that, while well established, is not yet taking full advantage of the global art world economy. Oral history interviews recorded with remote and urban Aboriginal communities for the project will be archived as a research collection, and contribute to a radio documentary/podcast for Earshot on ABC Radio National.
‘The relational museum and its objects’, 2015–19
(Australian National University, British Museum and Museum of the Riverina)
This project aims to develop and trial approaches that facilitate community access to and engagements with Indigenous collections and objects that have been historically dispersed across museums in Australia and the United Kingdom. It is being conducted in collaboration with Indigenous communities and regional museums in both countries and seeks to develop and test a new theory around the ‘relational museum’ and contemporary museum practice in Australia. A focus during the past year has been on local museum collections held in the Riverina.
‘Restoring dignity: Networked knowledge for repatriation communities’, 2017–19
(Australian National University, Humboldt University, Department of Communications and the Arts, Gur A Baradharaw Kod Torres Strait Sea and Land Council, Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority, University of Amsterdam, University of Otago, Flinders University of South Australia, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and Association on American Indian Affairs (former partner))
Bringing together shared research, resources and networks, this project aims to create a digital facility to preserve and make accessible a critical and extensive record of repatriation information worldwide within an Indigenous data-governance framework. The archive, spanning the past 40 years of research and repatriation activities, is expected to support repatriation practice and improve the opportunities of repatriation for social good. Museum staff have supported the project with archival and institutional research related to the Museum’s role in repatriation histories, and participated in a repatriation workshop delivered by the Australian National University in Broome and Fitzroy Crossing in September 2018.
‘Return, reconcile, renew: Understanding the history, effects and opportunities of repatriation and building an evidence base for the future’, 2013–16; renewed as a LIEF grant until 2018–19
(Australian National University, University of Melbourne, University of Tasmania, Flinders University, AIATSIS, Department of Communications and the Arts, Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority, University of Otago, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Gur A Baradharaw Kod Torres Strait Sea and Land Council and Association on American Indian Affairs (former partner))
This project analyses the historical context of repatriation over the past 40 years, revealing and exploring rich Indigenous histories, the effects of repatriation, and increased understanding of the current and future role of repatriation in community development. The project’s data archive continues to be used to forge new ground in the Indigenous development of protocols for the digital archiving of, and online access to, information of high cultural sensitivity, through the subsequent ‘Restoring dignity’ project.
Collaborative projects and partnerships
The Museum initiated and continued a number of important partnerships and projects throughout the year, collaborating with external partners on exhibitions and research, and sharing staff skills and expertise.
New partnerships
In addition to the ARC projects and partnerships reported elsewhere in this report, the Museum entered into new collaborations with:
- Australian Academy of Science: renewed partnership to support the Mike Smith Student Prize for History of Australian Science or Australian Environmental History
- the Australian National University, National Archives of Australia, and Menzies Australia Institute at King’s College London: develop the Australian National Fellowships Program to facilitate exchange between institutions, increase the profile of scholarship on Australia and the world in the United Kingdom and Europe, and build wider research collaborations
- the British Museum: renewal of an MoU for collaboration on special exhibitions and research, including on Australian Indigenous cultural materials. The MoU succeeds the successful delivery of four major exhibitions under a previous MoU with the British Museum:Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation (2015), Encounters: Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum (2015–16), A History of the World in 100 Objects (2016–17) and Rome: City and Empire (2018–19)
- China International Culture Association: an MoU for an internship program enabling the Museum to host two staff from the National Museum of China during September and November 2018
- Menang community, Western Australian Museum, University of Western Australia and Deakin University: project bringing together researchers with diverse expertise to understand Nyungar knowledge, using Robert Neill’s fish specimen collection
- National Art Museum of China: a second MoU to support the exchange of personnel, collections and exhibitions
- Swayn Gallery of Australian Design: an MoU to develop a program of events, exhibitions and other research outputs to promote Australian design, including the appointment of Adrienne Erickson as the inaugural Swayn Senior Fellow in Australian Design.
Existing partnerships
The Museum continued to contribute to projects and partnerships with:
- Austrade: conduct Austrade Today professional development program, with a focus on developing a better understanding of Indigenous Australia and the context of Australia’s trade history through the lens of Defining Moments in Australian History
- Australian Antarctic Division of the Department of the Environment and Energy: an MoU for the development of the Australian Antarctic Heritage Collection Project (AAHCP)
- Australian Council of National Trusts: an MoU to share knowledge and expertise in ways that enrich public knowledge of Australia’s heritage and collections
- Australian National University: collaborative research projects and master planning
- Canberra Writers Festival: partner, venue and support
- Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and Princess Cruises: graphic-panel displays
- DFAT Diplomatic Academy: deliver Understanding Australia program
- Gab Titui Cultural Centre, representing the Torres Strait Regional Authority: an MoU for the tour of Evolution: Torres Strait Masks
- German–Australian Repatriation Research Network: attendance at the German–Australian Repatriation Research Network meeting in Leipzig, Germany, in December 2018
- Hokkaido University: an MoU to develop an academic teaching program focusing on Indigenous studies and repatriation, with the support of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science
- National Australia Day Council: an MoU to develop and tour the Australian of the Year Awards exhibition
- National Centre for Indigenous Studies, Australian National University: develop a ‘Return, reconcile, renew’ repatriation network
- National Heritage Board of Singapore: an MoU for the exchange of exhibitions, collections information and research, and staff exchanges to support both organisations’ activities and programs
- National Museum of China: an MoU for staff and exhibition exchange, including the display of The Historical Expression of Chinese Art at Acton
- Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery: an MoU with the Museum, National Gallery of Australia and Australian War Memorial to support capacity-building
- South Australian Museum: an MoU to collaborate on exhibition projects, including sharing curatorial, touring and venue support for Yidaki: Didjeridu and the Sound of Australia and two other exhibitions
- South Australian Maritime Museum, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Australian National Maritime Museum and Western Australian Museum: tour of The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800–1804
- Vatican Anima Mundi Museum and Sharjah Museums Authority: a partnership to develop the exhibition ‘So That You Might Know Each Other’: Faith and Culture in Islam
- Western Australian Museum: an MoU to collaborate on the Emerging Curators Program and exhibition projects featuring Australian content, to the mutual interest and benefit of both museums and their audiences.