'In recording and ordering documents considered important, the archive is a source of power. It takes control of the past, deciding which voices will be heard and which won’t, how they will be heard and for what purposes. Indigenous communities understood the power of the archive well before the European Enlightenment arrived and began archiving them. For them colonialism has been a struggle over archives as much as anything else.
'The eighteen essays by twenty authors, seven of whom are Indigenous, investigate different aspects of this struggle in Australia, from Indigenous uses of traditional archives and the development of new ones to the deconstruction and appropriation of European archives by contemporary artists as acts of cultural empowerment. It also examines the uses of archives often developed for other reasons as a means to reconstruct the lives artists and the meanings of their art, such as the use of rainfall records to interpret early Papunya paintings. Indigenous Archives is the first overview examining the role of archives in the production and understanding of Indigenous culture. Wide-ranging in its scope, it reveals the lively state of research into Indigenous histories and culture in Australia.' (Publication summary)
'The abstract of Darren Jorgensen and Ian McLean’s edited monograph Indigenous Archives promises two key goals set within the context of Australian Aboriginal art: first, to share knowledge about ancient Indigenous recordkeeping practices, and second, to examine the powerful intersections between ancient recordkeeping and the impact of colonialisation in Australia.' (Introduction)
'This voluminous collection is edited by two pre-eminent academics: Darren Jorgensen, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia, and Professor Ian McLean, the Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History at the University of Melbourne. They have gathered 18 essays that present the myriad ways in which Indigenous culture, history and records are being re-examined and their nature and significance revaluated. In his introductory essay, Ian McLean draws a parallel between the hermeneutic task of the Indigenous shaman and the Western archivist, both being in control of their respective archives, and plots out the convergence of the two approaches in the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. The dynamics of power, control and understanding within Western Indigenous archives which he identifies permeate the essays that follow.' (Introduction)
In 1982 Ros Langford, on behalf of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, demanded Indigenous control of Indigenous cultural heritage at the Australian Archaeological Association’s annual meeting. Following the difficult repatriation of Truganini’s remains and the heated debate over Aboriginal heritage during the Franklin River campaign, this statement linked the campaigns for land rights and treaty with the ownership and self-representation of cultural heritage. Langford’s statement transformed archaeological practice by demanding recognition of Aboriginal cultures as living while reflecting the political shift at the time from assimilation to self-determination. This shift is also often cited as political background to the emergence of contemporary Aboriginal art and the establishment of Papunya Tula and other remote art centres in the 1970s. The model of cultural revitalisation of country, with the promise of economic independence, was utopian. Paintings of Dreaming stories fed a blossoming international art market, but disillusionment followed, with charges of exploitation and cultural subordination. Four decades on, many in the cultural sector still aspire to Langford’s vision, as evidenced in parts of the recent publications Indigenous Archives: The Making and Unmaking of Aboriginal Art and Aboriginal Art and Australian Society: Hope and Disenchantment. The subtitles of each book suggest a rise-and-fall narrative to explain the phenomenon of Aboriginal art. While each volume describes the hopeful beginnings of contemporary Aboriginal art, neither suggests that the movement has failed to bring emancipation and empowerment. Rather, these subtitles point to the discursive tensions that have shaped the interpretation and reception of Aboriginal art to foreground the complicated but significant place it has come to hold in national culture.' (Introduction)
'This voluminous collection is edited by two pre-eminent academics: Darren Jorgensen, a lecturer at the University of Western Australia, and Professor Ian McLean, the Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History at the University of Melbourne. They have gathered 18 essays that present the myriad ways in which Indigenous culture, history and records are being re-examined and their nature and significance revaluated. In his introductory essay, Ian McLean draws a parallel between the hermeneutic task of the Indigenous shaman and the Western archivist, both being in control of their respective archives, and plots out the convergence of the two approaches in the contemporary Aboriginal art movement. The dynamics of power, control and understanding within Western Indigenous archives which he identifies permeate the essays that follow.' (Introduction)
'The abstract of Darren Jorgensen and Ian McLean’s edited monograph Indigenous Archives promises two key goals set within the context of Australian Aboriginal art: first, to share knowledge about ancient Indigenous recordkeeping practices, and second, to examine the powerful intersections between ancient recordkeeping and the impact of colonialisation in Australia.' (Introduction)
In 1982 Ros Langford, on behalf of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, demanded Indigenous control of Indigenous cultural heritage at the Australian Archaeological Association’s annual meeting. Following the difficult repatriation of Truganini’s remains and the heated debate over Aboriginal heritage during the Franklin River campaign, this statement linked the campaigns for land rights and treaty with the ownership and self-representation of cultural heritage. Langford’s statement transformed archaeological practice by demanding recognition of Aboriginal cultures as living while reflecting the political shift at the time from assimilation to self-determination. This shift is also often cited as political background to the emergence of contemporary Aboriginal art and the establishment of Papunya Tula and other remote art centres in the 1970s. The model of cultural revitalisation of country, with the promise of economic independence, was utopian. Paintings of Dreaming stories fed a blossoming international art market, but disillusionment followed, with charges of exploitation and cultural subordination. Four decades on, many in the cultural sector still aspire to Langford’s vision, as evidenced in parts of the recent publications Indigenous Archives: The Making and Unmaking of Aboriginal Art and Aboriginal Art and Australian Society: Hope and Disenchantment. The subtitles of each book suggest a rise-and-fall narrative to explain the phenomenon of Aboriginal art. While each volume describes the hopeful beginnings of contemporary Aboriginal art, neither suggests that the movement has failed to bring emancipation and empowerment. Rather, these subtitles point to the discursive tensions that have shaped the interpretation and reception of Aboriginal art to foreground the complicated but significant place it has come to hold in national culture.' (Introduction)
