Matt Poll | Chau Chak Wing Museum

Ambassadors and Embassies

 Consultation is paramount in designing and staging exhibitions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island cultural heritage in Australian museums today. In this talk, the assistant curator of the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s Indigenous heritage collections will reflect on the processes and challenges of engaging with community representatives from the diverse nations of Aboriginal Australia that are represented in the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s inaugural exhibition of its significant Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island collections.

Ambassadors is an exhibition which comprises 100 objects on behalf of the nations of 25 different language groups across eight different display cases. The exhibition spaces were co-designed with many remote art centres which are often the ‘front door’ to remote Aboriginal communities. Consultations involved communities choosing how, when, and where it isn’t appropriate to communicate their history, stories and lore to the outside world. Many aspects of the interpretation of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island past, as it was promoted in Australian museums and art galleries, was seen by community members as inauthentic cultural ‘interpretation’. Ambassadors reflects the shift towards social and cultural spaces of autonomy that empower contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities.

The USYD Archaeology, Museum and Heritage seminar series is free and open to the public. You can attend in-person at the Chau Chak Wing Museum or via Zoom, however registration is essential. You can find out how to plan your visit to the Chau Chak Wing Museum here. We recommend arriving 10 minutes early to check in

When | Thursday 18 March

Time | 4pm – 5pm

Where | Education Room, Level 3 Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney

Available online via Zoom

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For more information, to sign up to our mailing list or to offer a seminar please contact:

Agata Calabrese agata.calabrese@sydney.edu.au
Lorraine Leung lorraine.leung@sydney.edu.au
Kieran McGee kmcg2831@uni.sydney.edu.au
Simon Wyatt-Spratt simon.wyatt-spratt@sydney.edu.au
Sareeta Zaid sareeta.zaid@sydney.edu.au

The Department of Archaeology is part of the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI).

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