From the Curator...

We are hoping to reinterpret our collection of Aboriginal artefacts in the near future. As a consequence, I have been looking into the role and responsibilities of the museum in the presentation of Indigenous objects. The following comes from my initial research:

"The inclusion of Aboriginal art and artefacts in the modern museum setting is the product of major changes within Western conceptions of art and culture, and the political climate of Australia. For the greater part of the twentieth century Aboriginal art and material culture was confined to the ethnographic museum, thus defining it as belonging to the 'other' and being part of a 'primative' art movement. More recently, the modernist expressionism of this 'primative' art has been recognised by critics and Aboriginal art and associated artefacts have been accepted as equal to the Western cultural 'standard' and is being exhibited in every key museum in Australia."