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Christine Dauber, "Uncovering the Problematic: History and Ownership in the Gallery of the First Australians" In 1975, Museum's Australia in conjunction with the Federal Government undertook an assessment of museums throughout Australia. The results of this study were published in what has become known as the Pigott Report. Today it remains notable on two counts. Firstly, Aboriginal and ethnographic collections received special attention, and secondly and most incredibly, after a lapse of over twenty-five years, this document remains the guiding instrument for the conceptual approach to the newly opened National Museum of Australia. This Report suggested that the National Museum of Australia should have what was then a radical new focus for museums. This included a focus on Aboriginal history rather than on anthropology, on the twentieth century rather than on early settlement history, and on the Australian environment. Twenty-six years later this became a reality when the National Museum of Australia, Australia's first fully national museum finally opened its doors to the Australian public in March of 2001. Housed within it is The Gallery of the First Australians where First Australians refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Within this gallery it is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history that is told. Prior to the commencement of building of the museum in 1992 the Australian courts in the Mabo case, made what was a watershed decision on Native Title Rights and property ownership. This paper examines what is at stake in representing Australian indigenous history in a national museum within not only a postcolonial context but also a post Mabo framework. It also explores why the decision to exhibit indigenous history was so radical and what possibilities exist for the ownership of their history by indigenous Australians when framed within a national museum context. Biography: Christine Dauber is a confirmed PhD candidate in the School of EMSAH at the University of Queensland. Her research centres on the National Museum of Australia and the Gallery of the First Australians. Her topic addresses issues surrounding the representation of Indigenous culture within national museums. She has had a long involvement with both galleries and museums and edits "Objects" for the online journal M/C A Journal of Media and Culture. |
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