Indigenous leaders and Fellows tell us that their priority is to return Indigenous knowledge to communities, who can then decide how to use it – for cultural repair and restoration, for creative and cultural industries, for tourism on their terms.[1]
The exhibition Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters is an Australian R&D success, currently touring Europe (so far, the UK, Germany, France and Finland), and showcased by global peak museum body, The Best in Heritage. For an Indian Ocean, Southeast Asian tourist company selling travel to Australia that uses the Seven Sisters exhibition as its lead promotion, see The legend of the seven sisters and the songlines – Indian Ocean Travel. Australian Indigenous culture has received international acclaim before. The significance of Songlines is that it was the initiative of Indigenous community knowledge holders. Anangu elder and Traditional Owner of the Seven Sisters songline in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, Inawinytji Williamson, wrote for the exhibition that
We want to show this major creation story here so many other people can look, learn and increase their understanding. All people, white and black, can come and see and understand.[2]
Indigenous knowledge holders researched and developed the exhibition with humanities researchers and the National Museum of Australia.
It was a five year project, associated with 20 Indigenous knowledge holders, and 500 square kilometres of Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunyjatjara (APY) lands in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia.[3] Research incorporated more than 100 paintings and 66 weavings, spears and sculptures, some of the art works created for the show. The knowledge that Indigenous communities have extended and shared in partnership with researchers, coordinated by the NMA, has developed their ability to capitalise on international interest in their unique cultural and geographical assets.
The exhibition succeeded because of NMA’s continuous improvement through iterative stages of R&D with Indigenous knowledge holders and humanities researchers. Prior exhibitions had experimented with “embodied and experiential” curatorial techniques best suited to Indigenous knowledge; Songlines took this R&D one step further. The result is a cultural export that takes a confident, contemporary Australia to the world. Palmer again: “As curator of Indigenous collections at the Macleay Museum at Sydney University, Matt Poll has observed: ‘These exhibitions demonstrate how embedding community consultation into the rationale for exhibitions is not just ethical, but crucial in transferring the moral authority and ownership of the representation of Aboriginal culture onto the world stage.’” [4]
Australian R&D can keep building on this success. Palmer concluded, p. 156, that “the exhibition approached the songlines as vehicle for translating the Tjukurpa as a cultural institution in its own right”.[5] This means that the shared knowledge of the Dreaming – the landforms, the rites and the ongoing social and cultural relationships they centre – turns Indigenous Country itself into the world’s oldest and largest cultural institution, with Indigenous people stepping forward as accustomed partners and guides.[6]
With thanks to Professor Mat Trinca, former CEO of the National Museum of Australia.
[1] Nick Thieberger, Michael Aird, Clint Bracknell, Jason Gibson, Amanda Harris, Marcia Langton, Gaye Sculthorpe, and Jane Simpson (2023), “The New Protectionism: Risk Aversion and Access to Indigenous Heritage Records”, Archives & Manuscripts 2023, 51(2): 10971 – http://dx.doi.org/10.37683/asa.v51.10971
[2] “‘Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters’ exhibition National Museum of Australia, Canberra”, Review by Shannyn Palmer, The Australian National University; from Aboriginal History, Volume 43, 2019, p. 148.
[3] Tracking the Seven Sisters: An epic songlines narrative brought to life at the National Museum – ABC News
[4] Palmer (2019), p. 154.
[5] Palmer (2019), p. 156.
[6] With thanks to Professor Mat Trinca Talalin AM FAHA, Professor of Museum Practice, ANU, and former CEO of the National Museum of Australia, for insights.
