Occasionally, an opportunity arises to bring on loan to Australia examples of Aboriginal cultural objects housed in museums abroad. One such opportunity arose in 2004, the 150th anniversary of the founding of Museum Victoria.
Two bark etchings and the carved wooden figure of an emu were identified in the collections of the British Museum and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
They had been collected by a settler, John Hunter Kerr, from Aborigines living in northern Victoria. Kerr had good relations with local Aborigines, and he appears to have acquired the objects to bring Aboriginal ways of life to the attention of the world.
The idea of an anniversary exhibition of the barks was presented to the museum's Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee in May 2003, and both British institutions agreed to the loan.
Etched on Bark was staged from March to June 2004 in Bunjilaka, the Indigenous exhibition gallery and Aboriginal cultural centre at the Melbourne Museum, one of the three museums operated by Museum Victoria.
As the exhibition neared the end of its season, emergency declarations made under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 were issued at the request of elders of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Jupagalk Peoples of northern Victoria.
The declarations, which prevented the return of the objects to London, threw into sharp relief a range of issues that confront many museums around the globe. How can the legitimate interests of Indigenous communities in objects that reflect their cultural history and identity be recognised?
How should museums respond to claims for the return of cultural material to its place of origin? How do the circumstances under which material was acquired affect the issue? How can loans between museums continue if there is a threat that laws may be used to prevent agreements from being honoured?
Museums in many parts of the world have provided platforms for the assertion of culture and identity by indigenous groups. In Australia, museums have played a prominent role, working with Aboriginal communities to provide a means of informing a broad public and visitors to Australia about Indigenous heritage, struggles and achievements, thereby contributing towards reconciliation.
Many museums established in the colonial era are alive to the need to find new ways of using their collections. The Horniman Museum, based on the collections of a 19th-century tea importer, today provides inspiration for a large, multicultural audience in south London. In Sweden, the new Museum of World Culture replaces the Ethnographic Museum of Gothenburg.
The reinvention of the traditional ethnographic museum as an agent of understanding and cultural validation in a multicultural world is gathering pace. But it is not enough.
The concentration of the riches of overseas cultures in the museums of wealthy cities in the developed world might make them available to international tourists, but it fails to address the needs of most Indigenous people for whom the cost of travel is prohibitive. Museums must consider other forms of engagement.
The loan of objects to be displayed at their country of origin can be a powerful form of sharing culture. It was with that motivation that the request to borrow the bark objects from Britain was made by Museum Victoria. In many aspects, it can be considered a successful venture.
At the suggestion of the members of the community, through the museum's Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee, information, such as lists of the names of Aboriginal people living in the area in the 1860s, was added to the display.
However, the serving of emergency declarations brought a different and unwelcome dimension to the situation. The museum was bound to honour its obligations to return the objects to Britain as set out in the loan agreement.
But we were also obliged to comply with the law under which the declarations had been made. Returning the objects would have incurred penalties that include fines and imprisonment.
We engaged in long and detailed discussions with representatives of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Jupagalk communities to try to resolve the situation without costly and divisive legal action.
At the heart of our case was the concern that should the attempt to keep the barks in Victoria prove successful, it would close the door on any further loans of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artefacts to Australia.
As the case began to attract worldwide media attention, it became abundantly clear that museums would refuse to lend unless it could be demonstrated that the loaned material would be returned.
After six months of discussion, no negotiated outcome had been achieved. Court-ordered mediation also failed. With the community refusing to lift the declarations, the museum went to court to challenge their validity.
The essence of the case was that emergency declarations were designed to provide 30 days' protection for Aboriginal sites and objects in imminent threat of damage or destruction, for example, on a construction site.
Beyond that period, it was the responsibility of the minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Victorian Government to make either a temporary or a permanent declaration of preservation.
Our legal advice was that successive emergency declarations had no validity, but this had never been tested in the courts. After six months of deliberation, the judge found that an inspector could make one 30-day declaration, but after that responsibility passed to the minister.
Once the ruling had been made, the minister stated that he would not make temporary or permanent declarations in respect of the bark objects, which were then returned to London at the end of May 2005.
It has been a painful experience for all involved with the barks, but also one with lessons for the future. People working in museums often talk about the power of objects - of the 'real thing'.
For members of an Indigenous community to come face-to-face with objects such as the barks that had been almost entirely absent from their culture for so long was inspiring, but also a hurtful reminder of the losses suffered as a result of colonisation.
The hurt was exemplified by the desperation on the part of the elders to retain the barks. The barks also inspired members of the community to try bark etchings, thus reviving a practice that had disappeared during the upheavals caused by European settlement in the mid-19th century.
The question that arises inevitably is this: should the museum have arranged this exhibition in the first place if the results could be so traumatic? The answer cannot be no. That would mean no further access to Australian Indigenous material held overseas.
For us to conclude that we regard the loan of Aboriginal cultural material as too difficult to contemplate would be a tragedy, denying Indigenous people access to their heritage.
It should be remembered that many collections in museums overseas were started at precisely the time that Aboriginal communities in Australia were suffering loss of their lands, their way of life and their cultural objects.
The potential for material gathered in the 19th century to inspire Aboriginal people today places a heavy responsibility on those museums to find ways of engaging with communities.
Acknowledging the fact that those communities have rights in relation to material created by their forebears would be a bold step for many museums, but it would place dialogue on a more even footing than a legalistic reliance on western laws of property.
Museums should open a dialogue with communities whose cultures they hold to explore the range of possible options that may include short- and long-term loans, repatriation, cultural exchanges and partnerships.
The experience of museums in Australia could be very helpful to overseas museums that wish to engage with Aboriginal communities. For all the difficulties that will be encountered there is a much greater potential for enrichment of knowledge and understanding to the benefit of all.
Patrick Greene is the chief executive officer of Museum Victoria
www.museum.vic.gov.au
Two bark etchings and the carved wooden figure of an emu were identified in the collections of the British Museum and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
They had been collected by a settler, John Hunter Kerr, from Aborigines living in northern Victoria. Kerr had good relations with local Aborigines, and he appears to have acquired the objects to bring Aboriginal ways of life to the attention of the world.
The idea of an anniversary exhibition of the barks was presented to the museum's Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee in May 2003, and both British institutions agreed to the loan.
Etched on Bark was staged from March to June 2004 in Bunjilaka, the Indigenous exhibition gallery and Aboriginal cultural centre at the Melbourne Museum, one of the three museums operated by Museum Victoria.
As the exhibition neared the end of its season, emergency declarations made under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 were issued at the request of elders of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Jupagalk Peoples of northern Victoria.
The declarations, which prevented the return of the objects to London, threw into sharp relief a range of issues that confront many museums around the globe. How can the legitimate interests of Indigenous communities in objects that reflect their cultural history and identity be recognised?
How should museums respond to claims for the return of cultural material to its place of origin? How do the circumstances under which material was acquired affect the issue? How can loans between museums continue if there is a threat that laws may be used to prevent agreements from being honoured?
Museums in many parts of the world have provided platforms for the assertion of culture and identity by indigenous groups. In Australia, museums have played a prominent role, working with Aboriginal communities to provide a means of informing a broad public and visitors to Australia about Indigenous heritage, struggles and achievements, thereby contributing towards reconciliation.
Many museums established in the colonial era are alive to the need to find new ways of using their collections. The Horniman Museum, based on the collections of a 19th-century tea importer, today provides inspiration for a large, multicultural audience in south London. In Sweden, the new Museum of World Culture replaces the Ethnographic Museum of Gothenburg.
The reinvention of the traditional ethnographic museum as an agent of understanding and cultural validation in a multicultural world is gathering pace. But it is not enough.
The concentration of the riches of overseas cultures in the museums of wealthy cities in the developed world might make them available to international tourists, but it fails to address the needs of most Indigenous people for whom the cost of travel is prohibitive. Museums must consider other forms of engagement.
The loan of objects to be displayed at their country of origin can be a powerful form of sharing culture. It was with that motivation that the request to borrow the bark objects from Britain was made by Museum Victoria. In many aspects, it can be considered a successful venture.
At the suggestion of the members of the community, through the museum's Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Advisory Committee, information, such as lists of the names of Aboriginal people living in the area in the 1860s, was added to the display.
However, the serving of emergency declarations brought a different and unwelcome dimension to the situation. The museum was bound to honour its obligations to return the objects to Britain as set out in the loan agreement.
But we were also obliged to comply with the law under which the declarations had been made. Returning the objects would have incurred penalties that include fines and imprisonment.
We engaged in long and detailed discussions with representatives of the Dja Dja Wurrung and Jupagalk communities to try to resolve the situation without costly and divisive legal action.
At the heart of our case was the concern that should the attempt to keep the barks in Victoria prove successful, it would close the door on any further loans of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artefacts to Australia.
As the case began to attract worldwide media attention, it became abundantly clear that museums would refuse to lend unless it could be demonstrated that the loaned material would be returned.
After six months of discussion, no negotiated outcome had been achieved. Court-ordered mediation also failed. With the community refusing to lift the declarations, the museum went to court to challenge their validity.
The essence of the case was that emergency declarations were designed to provide 30 days' protection for Aboriginal sites and objects in imminent threat of damage or destruction, for example, on a construction site.
Beyond that period, it was the responsibility of the minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Victorian Government to make either a temporary or a permanent declaration of preservation.
Our legal advice was that successive emergency declarations had no validity, but this had never been tested in the courts. After six months of deliberation, the judge found that an inspector could make one 30-day declaration, but after that responsibility passed to the minister.
Once the ruling had been made, the minister stated that he would not make temporary or permanent declarations in respect of the bark objects, which were then returned to London at the end of May 2005.
It has been a painful experience for all involved with the barks, but also one with lessons for the future. People working in museums often talk about the power of objects - of the 'real thing'.
For members of an Indigenous community to come face-to-face with objects such as the barks that had been almost entirely absent from their culture for so long was inspiring, but also a hurtful reminder of the losses suffered as a result of colonisation.
The hurt was exemplified by the desperation on the part of the elders to retain the barks. The barks also inspired members of the community to try bark etchings, thus reviving a practice that had disappeared during the upheavals caused by European settlement in the mid-19th century.
The question that arises inevitably is this: should the museum have arranged this exhibition in the first place if the results could be so traumatic? The answer cannot be no. That would mean no further access to Australian Indigenous material held overseas.
For us to conclude that we regard the loan of Aboriginal cultural material as too difficult to contemplate would be a tragedy, denying Indigenous people access to their heritage.
It should be remembered that many collections in museums overseas were started at precisely the time that Aboriginal communities in Australia were suffering loss of their lands, their way of life and their cultural objects.
The potential for material gathered in the 19th century to inspire Aboriginal people today places a heavy responsibility on those museums to find ways of engaging with communities.
Acknowledging the fact that those communities have rights in relation to material created by their forebears would be a bold step for many museums, but it would place dialogue on a more even footing than a legalistic reliance on western laws of property.
Museums should open a dialogue with communities whose cultures they hold to explore the range of possible options that may include short- and long-term loans, repatriation, cultural exchanges and partnerships.
The experience of museums in Australia could be very helpful to overseas museums that wish to engage with Aboriginal communities. For all the difficulties that will be encountered there is a much greater potential for enrichment of knowledge and understanding to the benefit of all.
Patrick Greene is the chief executive officer of Museum Victoria
www.museum.vic.gov.au
