Contexts of Collection - a dialogic approach to understanding the making of the material record of Yolngu cultures

This ARC Discovery project builds on the recently completed iDig E-Research project. It aims to explore the contexts in which the collections of Yolngu cultural material were originally made and highlight the agency of Yolngu in influencing the nature of the collections and the interests of particular collectors, including missionaries, anthropologists, art dealers and filmmakers. In order to do this, it will necessarily re-unite, albeit virtually, diverse materials that have, over time, been divided according to material type and often dispersed to different collecting institutions. Ultimately, the project aims to make film, photographic and material culture collections from different areas accessible, particularly to the Indigenous community, through a simple geographic interface.

Seeing Change

Details coming soon...

Bidwern

This E-research grant is being led jointly by Kim McKenzie (CCR), Peter Cooke, (Northern Land Council) and Peter Raftos (Division of Information, ANU). The project is named "Bidwern", a term from the Bininj Kunwok languages of western Arnhem Land used to describe innovative ways of doing things. The Bidwern project aims to explore and create means by which multi-formatted research information can be collated, archived and accessed using e-research infrastructures such as digital repositories. The main source of this digital information is the very remote location of Kabulwarnamyo on the Arnhem Plateau where multi-disciplinary research is being conducted as part of an ongoing land-management project. That project is creating records in fields as diverse as botany, fire-behavior anthropology and social history. The recording of the area's extraordinary rock art is also an aspect of the work there, as can be seen in the film "Fragments of the Owl's Egg". Through links to Linda Barwick at the University of Sydney, and Kevin Bradley at the National Library, the Bidwern project is also contributing to the technical development of the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia (NRPIPA).

AUSTLANG - Indigenous Languages web-based system

This project is an initiative of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). The project is to create a web-based system to administer and access multiple datasets on Australian Indigenous Languages. This data has been compiled over several decades by researchers at AIATSIS and elsewhere. Google maps will be used to browse and display the locations of languages in Australia. The system is being developed jointly by the RSH, ANU and AIATSIS.

The ANU’s supercomputer facility are supporting the project. ANU-SF is providing resources to host this complex web-based system which requires secure data storage and fast online access. ANU-SF and RSH programmers will work together to provide advice and steer the project in a direction that utilises existing resources and compliments other similar projects

The Living Knowledge project

The Living Knowledge project is founded on the documentation of the Saltwater Bark Painting Collection - a series of bark paintings from Yirrkala acquired by the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM). These paintings illuminate in many obvious and in many subtle ways the detailed knowledge that the Yolngu people of northeast Arnhem Land have of the coastal marine environment.

The project involved supporting the Yirrkala Community Education Galtha workshop program, working with NSW South Coast communities recording 'Culture Camps' and assisting at Boolarng Nangamai Art and Culture Studio.

This research was funded by a three year Australian Research Council Industry Partner grant (2004-2007). The project aims were to determine the most effective ways of incorporating Indigenous knowledge within secondary school science curricula. The project brought together as industry partners the Australian National University, the NSW Department of Education and Training Curriculum Support Directorate, the Yirrkala Community Education Centre and the ANMM.

A website is one platform through which the research is documented and disseminated.

http://www.livingknowledge.edu.au

(Complete website to go live soon in 2008)

The intended audience for the website is secondary school students and teachers both non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal. The emphasis is on teaching Aboriginal perspectives in science in an integrated way, without separating Indigenous knowledge from its cultural context. The website aims to extend upon the work of the Saltwater artists in educating non-Yolngu knowledge and sea rights awareness of the need for sea rights. A kiosk and film was also developed as a part of this project which is on display in the ANMM's Eora First People Gallery.

iDig - Indigenous Collections E-research

Development of the iDig Network began in 2004 with a small development grant from the ARC. In 2005 the CCR and CRIO was successful in gaining a one year ARC E-research grant to develop a prototype multi-institutional search engine for Australian Indigenous collections. The E-research grant involves collaboration with Museum Victoria and the Berndt Museum of Anthropology at the University of Western Australia. The prototype search engine aims to link selected materials from the collections of these two museums and demonstrate the potential for a more comprehensive linking of Indigenous collections in future. The intersection of technical and cultural issues will be investigated in order to identify an optimal model. Current digital models for managing and accessing materials in multiple formats (audio, film, photographic and print materials) will be explored, and a set of cultural protocols developed for a subset of materials from one geographical area. Such an online research tool has the potential to facilitate research across disciplines, encourage collaborations between cultural institutions, and re-connect Indigenous communities with collections. Howard Morphy is the Chief Investigator.

website: http://www.idig.org.au

The Art of Narrijtin Maymuru

Narritjin’s life spanned a period of immense change: being born before the effective European colonization of Eastern Arnhem Land and living through the coming of Yirrkala Mission, the second World War and the physical and social upheaval brought about by bauxite mining and the development of a mining town, with all its attendant problems, right on Yirrkala’s doorstep. Narritjin was one of the leading Aboriginal artists of his generation but was also a man of extraordinary vision who saw his art as a way of communicating an important message to the outside world.

The CDROM explores the themes and meanings of 400 paintings that Narritjin produced as well as highlighting aspects of Narritjin’s life relevant to and reflected in his art.

Order the CD

People of the Rivermouth: The Joborr Texts of Frank Gurrmanamana

People of the Rivermouth presents Frank’s Joborr Texts and provides a vast amount of information to create a context in which they can be better understood. It offers a detailed explanation of the kinship structure of Anbarra society – the central concern of the Joborr Texts. It also gives a great deal of visual, audio and written material describing the Anbarra, their history, their life and their land. People of the Rivermouth is a joint publication of the National Museum of Australia (NMA), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research (CCR).People of the Rivermouth is available from the NMA Shop and AIATSIS Publishing.

Paperback and CDROM; 198pp(CD enclosed); 17.5x23.5 cms; price $135.00 (incl GST) plus postage.
ISBN 1 87694 408 0

Yingapungapu: A National Museum of Australia Exhibition

Visual Anthropology Research

Several films have been produced for use in the presentation of research:

A ten minute film on the Yingapungapu sand sculpture in different contexts was edited to accompany Howard Morphy’s paper "Sites of Persuasion – Yingapungapu at the National Museum of Australia". It was screened at the conference Museums and the Global Public Space, held at Bellagion from 22-26 July 2002 and at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford on September 16, 2002.

"The Dugong Hunters' Dance" was produced to support Howard and Frances Morphy’s paper "He dances as he hunts: the ritual environment of Eastern Arnhem Land". This was presented at the Ninth International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies (CHAGS) in Edinburgh, Scotland, September 2002.

"Dhapi at Yilpara" a 3 hour record of a circumcision ceremony was produced as part of continuing research and, at Yilpara community request, for return to them. An edited extract from the Dhapi film was included as part of Howard Morphy's opening address "Seeing Indigenous Art" for the conference The Art of Seeing and the Seeing of Art, in December 2001.