We're building a website: We want you now

The Museums & Galleries of NSW website will highlight your museums, galleries and Aboriginal cultural centres to the public.

We want you now!

Our website will be nothing without your participation. The whole public facing side will be profiling your exciting places, exhibitions and events. 

Right now M&G NSW staff are putting basic information about every one of you into our website but we need you to add the colour. Contact us if you would like to be one of the first to get started!

Add content to your profile page

So let's take a look at the profile page. In this case we've built a profile page for the Lady Denman Maritime Museum in Jervis Bay:

Add pictures

Upload images onto your page and create a slideshow. You have amazing collections, objects, works of art, exhibitions and events. We want to see them. 

What makes you special?

Write a description that tells visitors what they'll see and hear and why you stand out from the crowd. How do you reflect your region and your town? 

Connect to your social media

Simply add your Twitter, Facebook or Youtube account and they will feed into these custom built modules.

If you don't belong to social media, no biggie because . . .

Later on: News, Events and Exhibitions

From early September we will want to know everything that's going on at your museum, gallery or Aboriginal cultural centre and how you're connecting with your region. You'll be able to easily send us information with an online form and it will become part of the state-wide Events and Exhibitions database.

We want to hear from:

Aboriginal cultural centres
Community and volunteer-run museums 
Regional public galleries 
Regional museums 

Artist-run initiatives 

We're here to help

To help you through the process we will arrange your signup and link you to your organisation profile page. We'll provide an easy to use Website Guide that shows you how to upload text and images onto your profile page.

If you would like to check out our website (that isn't live yet) and be one of the first to start uploading information please contact us.

Andrew or Katie 

ph: 02 9358 1760 
andrewb@mgnsw.org.au 
comms@mgnsw.org.au

Mukurtu 1.0 launches in Sydney at Museums & Galleries NSW workshops

Some of the greatest revolutions begin with a whisper and on the International Day of Indigenous Peoples last week that whisper was Mukurtu.

Mukurtu 1.0, a free and open source platform that will create safe digital keeping places for Indigenous communities around the world was officially launched in Sydney at a Museums & Galleries NSW workshop at the State Library on 8 August.

The launch of Mukurtu 1.0 in Sydney was also significant as this adaptable content management system that responds to Indigenous protocols had its beginnings in Australia.

For Mukurtu Project Director Kim Christen from the Washington State University, the journey to Mukurtu 1.0 began in Tennant Creek, NT, in 1995. As an anthropology intern working with the Warumungu community, she thought there would be content management software (CMS) available to meet the community’s desire to organise, manage and share its digital cultural materials in line with their cultural protocols.

Instead, the few CMS systems available that attempted to respond to Indigenous protocols were limited in options, prohibitively expensive and required extensive training and proficiency. Since that time, government developed, Indigenous focused CMS programs have also stalled, particularly where communities have been reluctant to hand over precious information to state control.

Kim’s inspiration was mukurtu, the Warumungu world for dilly bag, used for collecting and gathering bush foods and in a particular Warumungu instance, holding their sacred objects and knowledge.

From her position at Washington State University, Kim was able to attract funding from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the US based National Endowment for the Humanities towards her social justice vision of empowering Indigenous peoples everywhere through digital management of their own cultural resources and knowledge.

The funding has grown as the project has gained momentum and feedback in test communities in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, North and South America. It also attracted some of the best technical input and advice available, including Michael Ashley, from University of California Berkley as Development Director.

Kim and Michael made a three-day stopover in Sydney en route to New Zealand where the interest in Mukurtu is even greater than here. Museums & Galleries NSW organised the 3 one day introductory workshops with support from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Data Archive (ATSIDA) at University of Technology (UTS) Sydney, the State Library through new Director Alex Byrne and Charles Sturt University Wagga Campus.

What makes Mukurtu special, apart from being free, powerful, secure and easy to use, is its adaptability to any form of Indigenous protocol in isolation or combination. It does this through an “And/Or” system of community and protocol relationship options.

As Kim and Michael say, the basis of the system is about people and relationships and the software just enables these to work together in an easy and instantaneous process.

The Drupal CMS platform Mukurtu uses is also open source and very secure, used by the White House and the World Bank.

Mukurtu will work with most scanned or stored digital material including text based archives and spreadsheets, photos and video, podcasts, multimedia and visual/graphic art. It can be geo located instantaneously, even sourcing longitude and latitude if you do not know these, just type in the name of your location.

Multi-component elements of the same object (text, video, photos) can be related and stored. Objects can be related to each other and collections built and shared as online exhibitions. Communities can be assured only the information and visuals they want to share will be seen by the relevant audience. For instance, other members of the same clan or community may see more or different material to what members of the general public may see, based on the associated protocols. 

Mukurtu also allows users to apply creative commons or standard copyright licenses, which automatically generate deeds of useage for licensees of material. Kim and the team is also working on a Traditional Knowledge label system, which WIPO is particularly interested in. While not legally enforceable it will educate and provide understanding to web image end users on the appropriate use and accreditation of Indigenous materials from a Mukurtu CMS. 

The Mukurtu publishable front page can be customised, as can much of the system so that, for instance, a local Aboriginal Land Council can use Mukurtu for its front page, displaying objects and images from its collection alongside the approved traditional knowledge. 

Users can choose either a secure web-based version of the freeware or download a free version to their computer, laptop, tablet or mobile which will make that device in effect their digital keeping place. In either case their data is protected and can only be seen by those to whom they choose to make it available. 

The Mukurtu 1.0 release means that all future upgrades (Mukurtu 1.1 being the first) can be pushed out as automatic and compatible upgrades, meaning no loss of data already entered.

An iphone application will follow in October and, with more funding, an Android version in 2013. As one of our workshop participants identified, this will be invaluable for Aboriginal field workers who can instantly record on tablets or iphones any site variations due to nature or vandalism. Where coverage is available, these can be immediately available in the localized version of Mukurtu for comparison.

The three workshops run by Museums & Galleries NSW at the State Library and the Wagga campus of Sturt University attracted a small, diverse and enthusiastic pool of potential users. These included Aboriginal achivists, academics, multimedia artists, photographers, filmmakers, researchers, historians and local Aboriginal Land Councils and community groups.

Having experienced the ease and power of Mukurtu for themselves, there was a 100% uptake of the online version which offers further training and advice support and video conferencing. In some cases, among those wanting to continue using Mukurtu were users who had only just learnt to use email.

If you would like to know more about Mukurtu, go to www.mukurtu.org and watch the three minute video and read its top ten features (there are many more).

Like all the other participants, I have become a fan of Mukurtu, believing we can create the digital future of our cultural heritage using it. Through spreading the word and further funding, I hope to be able to invite Kim and Michael back next year for a series of longer workshops for what will be by then a community of Mukurtu users and enthusiasts.

To see an interview with Kim Christen from the Washington State University click here.

Steve Miller
Aboriginal Programs Manager

M&G embarks on RAP adventure

M&G fearlessly hoping onto the Mari Nawi.
Image courtesy of Andrew Brettell.

A two hour cruise including a course on living on only natural resources might sound like a pilot for a cross-over Survivor/Gilligan’s Island television show. It was instead how M&G NSW staff began their Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) adventure. 

Bravery and faith were required but more of the kind needed to face the unpredictable weather havoc of our la nina summer. With water, water everywhere, thanks to last Thursday’s extreme downpour, our fate was in the hands of the experienced Aboriginal mariners of the Tribal Warrior Association. 

Tribal Warrior is the not-for-profit, Redfern-based organization run by Aboriginal Elders. Since starting up in 1998, it has trained more than 700 Aboriginal mariners, many of them from remote and extremely disadvantaged backgrounds. 

The weather meant some last-minute changes to our program. Walking through the Royal Botanic Gardens and its Cadi Jam Ora: First Encounters interpretive display to our docking point was no longer on the agenda. The mob at Tribal Warrior however, held firm that the cruise would go ahead. Sure enough, by the time we disembarked at Clark Island, the sun had come out to welcome us.

Les Daniels gave us the island tour which is easy as it is less than a hectare in size. The fascinating part was in the detail, the commonplace features of the landscape that revealed so much about truly living from the land. We saw the natural rockpools and how they had been adapted as fishtraps: high tide comes in bringing the abundance of the harbor with it and then drains to leave a fish platter. We also inspected the natural aquafier on the island and learnt of the multiple uses of different native plant species found even on this small patch. 

Terry Olsen and M&G demonstrating the emu stance.
Image courtesy of Lorna Munro. 

Terry Olsen then demonstrated some of the many Aboriginal dances of eastern Australia before getting the team up to learn the emu dance. It was great fun and no one was hurt, not even a peck.

Back on board the Mari Nawi, Corey Grech who established bush foods eatery Purple Goanna in Redfern with sister Suzanne, was busy barbecuing up some tasty morsels of kangaroo and seafood with salad for our trip back. Corey is branching out with Kool Purple Kookas, teaching young people to cook healthy bush tucker in a fun way. There were many interesting conversations on the return trip including with Lorna Munro who earlier in the day had given us a presentation on the Aboriginal connections to the Woolloomooloo area and beyond. As living culture, some of these connections are still practiced today but probably invisible to the non-Aboriginal population. The natural landscape, the escarpments and the bays, also reveal land use patterns, including men’s business and women’s business, places where tools were ground and others where ceremonies took place. As an educator, Aboriginal history and politics are natural to Lorna whose bloodlines on both sides mean that such conversations were an everyday occurrence for her growing up. 

 M&G's Steve Miller, Corey Grech and Terry Olsen on the harbour.
Image courtesy of Andrew Brettell. 

The M&G NSW team were enthusiastic about this introduction to Aboriginal culture here in the centre of Sydney. Sydney Harbour after all is one of the most significant outdoor galleries in the world for rock art. As I’ve seen before, it helps to understand the layers and interactions of widely different cultures that have contributed to an area’s development. It adds meaning to a sense of place as something more than where you work or live.
Information on how to develop a RAP can be found on the Reconciliation Australia website.

Keeping Places & Beyond: building cultural futures in NSW

Keeping culture strong through communities was a central theme of the M&G NSW organised Keeping Places & Beyond: building cultural futures in NSW summit, held at CarriageWorks on September 19/20 2011.

In bringing together, for the first time, over 150 people from across the Aboriginal arts, community & professional organisations, NSW cultural institutions, government agencies, the education sector, small business, Elders groups and individuals, the summit’s main aim was to discuss and shape the future for NSW Aboriginal cultural practice, local knowledge, heritage and language. This blackfella/whitefella meeting has been hailed a huge success by nearly all who attended.

People traveled from throughout NSW. Those who arrived on the Sunday could sample Barani Barrabugu, the city’s new heritage walking trails of significant Aboriginal sites or use their complimentary entry to the Australian Museum. Many travelers caught up with the city mobs at the welcome BBQ, put on by the City of Sydney, at Redfern Community Centre in the evening.

The Smoking Ceremony and Welcome Dance in the CarriageWorks main foyer started proceedings on Monday morning. Uncle Max Eulo conducted the ceremony which was followed by a culturally strong performance from the Doonooch Dancers, Yung Nooky (on didj) and boys from the East Nowra Public School. The dancers then led delegates into the meeting place. Delegates were welcomed to country by Auntie Millie Ingram, from the Wyanga Elders Group, Redfern. The cultural program was threaded throughout the two days, with a boomerang demonstration by Laddie Timbery, and performances by The Stiff Gins, Yung Nooky and Emma Donovan and her band.

As for the summit program, it featured presentations from a range of authoritative and informative speakers including; Professor Bob Morgan, Russell Taylor, Djon Mundine, Keith Munro, Beryl van Oploo, Phil Gordon, Dr Sandy O’Sullivan and artist, Jenny Fraser among others. Bob Morgan spoke about cultural identity and emphasized a theme that was to run through other presentations and conversations - that of the importance of self determination, of Aboriginal communities being sufficiently empowered to perform their own cultural maintenance, art form development and dissemination.

I certainly appreciated the opportunity to sit and listen as did many others. Those engaging or looking to engage in the sector made many useful contacts and like-minded approaches to build partnerships. A range of recommendations and suggestions to progress and build on momentum were discussed and agreed upon in the final sessions. They ranged across areas such as Heritage, Digitization, Art & Design, Community Engagement and ongoing connections to Government and other stakeholders. The summit’s reference committee will now give some further thought to these and their final report to Arts NSW will prioritise and chart a way forward. I do think it’s a great testament to the value of the conference that participants were keen to develop an ongoing network to continue to explore the ideas and opportunities raised over the two days, and that there was an expressed desire to meet again in a couple of years time to re-thread the picture with the work and developments in the interim.

The summit was organized and convened by Museums & Galleries NSW with core funding from Arts NSW. It was supported by Aboriginal Affairs NSW and NSW Aboriginal Land Council.


All Photos by Mervyn Bishop

Doonooch Dancers at the beginning of the summit

Constance Chatfield and Aunty Beryl Van-Oploo

Emma Donovan sings at the reception

Peter White and Djon Mundine

Constance Chatfield and Steve Miller discuss "From Start Up to Cultural Enterprise"

Briefing & brainstorming for Bungaree: The First Australian

In addition to some much-loved sunshine and warm weather in Sydney, the first weekend of Spring also marked the beginning of the momentous Bungaree project; a new exhibition being curated by Djon Mundine (OAM), developed by Mosman Art Gallery and toured by Museums & Galleries NSW.

Bungaree: The First Australian brings together 17 major Aboriginal artists to create a contemporary multi-arts response to the historical figure of Bunagree - the first person described in print as being an 'Australian' and commonly known as a mediator between English colonists and Aboriginal people, circumnavigating Australia with Matthew Flinders in 1802.

In an action-packed 3 day residency, the artists were introduced to the story of Bungaree, with guest lectures by Dr John Maynard and Dr Keith Vincent Smith, participated in workshops, brainstorms, and walking tours around Georges Heights to get the creative juices flowing - all on the scenic site of Bungaree's Farm in Mosman, land gifted to him by Governor Macquarie in 1815. Artists present at the weekend residency include Frances Belle-Parker, Karla Dickens, Fiona Foley, Adam Hill, Warwick Keen, Gary Lee, Gordon Syron, Leanne Tobin, Jason Wing, Mervyn Bishop, Aroha Groves, Caroline Oakley, and Peter McKenzie.

Exhibition curator Djon Mundine and artists partcipating in a workshop

It was particularly interesting to hear these contributors share their thoughts about the controversial character of Bungaree and debate the benefits of his involvement in colonial settlement (or lack of!) - What were Bungaree's motivations in befriending Flinders? Which community was he really helping and why? It was also at times incredibly moving to be reminded of the consequent conflicts in control, culture and identity still so prominently faced by Aboriginal people now.

Over the next 12 months, the artists will be working furiously across multiple mediums (including painting, drawing, photography, digital media, sculpture and installation) to develop their artistic response, which will culminate in an inaugural exhibition at Mosman Art Gallery in September 2012 before embarking on a nationwide tour. This is one to watch!

Visiting The Willows and Boorabee

A visit to The Willows and the spectacular Severn River Gorge was the absolute highlight of a recent trip to the New England area for M&G NSW CEO Michael Rolfe and myself.

The Willows and the adjoining Boorabee property form a 2900 hectare Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) gazetted in March 2010 and one of only five in NSW.

It has an abundance of rare native wildflower and bird species and, if you are lucky, you might spot a Koala or three. The Koala is a totem of the local Ngoorabul people and they have ambitions to slowly develop the area as a koala sanctuary.

There is a cluster of huts offering basic accommodation that some fortunate school groups and others have used occasionally. Glen Innes Local Aboriginal Land Council plans to makes some improvements to these and the caretaker’s house. Three local Aboriginal Rangers are employed part time on the property under the Caring for Country program, there’s certainly plenty to do!

The Cooramah Aboriginal Cultural centre in town, also run by the LALC, is closed to the public at the moment, thought the café space is leased and the separate youth centre building is popular and busy.

The links to land and culture through the IPA is a priority and hopefully at some stage Cooramah can reopen to showcase this through artworks, photos and displays for those who can’t access this beautiful part of the world.

Steve Miller