Submitted by Paul Daley on
The South Australian Museum wants to take a global lead in connecting its enormous collection with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
John Carty stands on a platform inside a vast warehouse on Adelaide’s outskirts. On the floor below and behind him are rack after rack of shelves and drawers housing tens of thousands of Australian Indigenous artefacts.
There are about 5,000 spears and 3,000 boomerangs here, and hundreds upon hundreds of shields, thousands of pieces of decorative art and costume, and all sorts of curios – from the crayons the Adelaide tram driver-cum-ethnologist-cum-autodidact Charles Mountford encouraged the desert people to draw with, to a “pearl shell” fashioned from a buffed tin lid that was collected on the Canning stock route.
Maybe a way of holding on to stories is to give some things back
I mean, talk about the history of Australia in one object!
Related: Kevin Rudd's Indigenous museum was a good idea. But let's not leave it to politicians | Paul Daley
How would the average Australian feel if they couldn’t bury their dead? It’s unthinkable
Related: How the Indigenous art recognised by Unesco draws us into Australia's real history | Paul Daley
Related: An Indigenous curator for Indigenous artefacts: South Australia breaks new ground
Related: The old man and the sea (and Gotye): the story of 'Australia's only guru'
- Log in to post comments