Aboriginal Cultures Gallery of the South Australian Museum - Case Study Example

Aboriginal Cultures Gallery of the South Australian Museum Student’s Name Course Tutor Date Aboriginal Cultures Gallery of the South Australian Museum Introduction The Aboriginal cultures gallery of the South Australian Museum is a section in the museum which is involved in the preservation of the indigenous Australian culture through the various pictures and photos preserved there. This report presents an analysis of this gallery since it is involved in cultural conservation in Australia. Culture is a heritage and an important thing in society. In this report there is highlighted the ways through which the Aboriginal cultures gallery communicates the diversity of indigenous Australia. This report is important and necessary since the relevance and importance of this gallery needs to be determined. Communication of cultural diversity is important for the cohesion of the nation and for tourism purposes as well. The report is restricted on the ways that cultural diversity is communicated to the public especially those visiting the museum gallery. The focus of the report will not be deviated from this. It will also touch on the importance of communication of cultural diversity through the gallery. Cultural diversity is an important thing that must be given out to people. It improves the level at which people from other cultures appreciate and tolerate the cultures of their fellow countrymen. To the visitors it helps them appreciate the wide range of indigenous cultures that exist in Australia. Background The Aboriginal cultures gallery was opened in March 2000 a time when the South Australian museum was being re-opened after being under refurbishment for one year. The gallery exposes people to the culture of the continent of Australia which is alive, continuous and among the worlds oldest. Since 2000 the museum has been involved in the gathering of cultural objects such as artifacts, photographs, notebooks, videos among other things that display the culture of the aborigines. The museum had done the display, interpretation and study of the objects. The new gallery within the museum has 3000 cultural objects on display. The Aboriginal cultures gallery comes with an indigenous information center next to it. In this center, museum workers give information concerning the collections and the indigenous cultures through video, books, CD ROM, data bases and other means. The center also provides an Aboriginal family history project and a base for the guides of the Aboriginal gallery. The gallery is different from other indigenous collections because its basic mission is to present what the indigenous cultures had achieved before the intervention of the Europeans into traditions and material culture. The gallery does an exploration of the contemporary situation and contact experience of the Aborigines Hemming (2003 pp. 66). The gallery contributes also to the public and intellectual life of Australia by exposing important philosophical issues that visitors have and triggering questions on their culture and origin. To the indigenous people it gives them information concerning their heritage which many would not be having. Discussion The Aboriginal cultures gallery is a resourceful facility where people willing to learn about the Australian indigenous culture must go. The museum has done its best in trying to ensure that as many objects as possible are displayed in the gallery. This would satisfy the curiosity of its visitors. However there is at the moment a problem of space since the limited space available is taken up by the objects with interpretive texts competing with the objects for the same space. The result is that only 10% of the objects that the museum hopes to display have been displayed so far. This is equivalent to 3000 objects out of the total collection Allen and Chiller (2001, pp.136). In the gallery visitors would come across a number of issues which can deny them best service. For example the room is dimly lit presenting a situation of a nether world to people, world between worlds or a twilight zone. The full length side of the gallery there are tin masks that lack any acknowledgement of their makers or whether they are anonymous which denies that the makers were motivated by individual choices like aesthetics. There are many issues that have been identified as making the gallery not to perform its functions well. Compared to other museums such as the National Museum of Australia and the Museum of Victoria the museum must get out of history and seek to display contemporary culture. Analysis The gallery communicates the diversity of the cultures of the indigenous Australian people principally through the objects displayed in it. The indigenous information center is intended to increase interpretation and communication of the knowledge gathered there. The gallery helps the museum to increase consultation and dialogue with Aborigines Allen and Chiller (2001, pp.140) It also seeks to increase the involvement of these people in the collecting, presenting and interpreting their culture to visitors. This would be helpful since more elaborate details are bound to come from the Indigenous people themselves in all these processes. This gallery as it stands in the 21st century is a tiny project. It elucidates outmoded practices in museums yet there is a possibility that the project is compromised by exhibition size and lack of understanding of earlier practices. The items inside the gallery are arranged taxonomically and regionally as well to make visual storage. They were aimed at showing the ‘vanishing culture’ and giving a look at what was seen as a gone past in humanity. The Aboriginal cultures gallery is made of a composite of many galleries spreading on the museum’s two levels. There is a wealth of objects in the exhibition which have a typographical approach Dauber (2005, pp. 114). On the outside walls on the gallery artifacts appear in 8 thematic modules showing the equipment for daily traditional life. Among the classifications there are spears, string and basket, glue, stone tools and boomerangs. The 8 modules display the technological gains of the Aborigines. They have supportive didactic texts, paintings and photographs. These put into context the objects existing in their individual cultures. To add to this there exist 6 thematic modules placed at a central place in the room and they focus on relatedness, antiquity, water quest, food quest, aesthetics, play and games and they are arranged in a geographical manner by their regions to display the variance in the tribes from which they were obtained. Conclusion The Aboriginal cultures gallery in the Southern Australian museum has a collection of indigenous objects showing the cultures of the Aboriginal people. Information is given through videos, books, CD ROM and other means. The gallery has various issues affecting its performance among them its size, light and focus on historical objects alone. However it has a huge collection of cultural objects with Aboriginal workers to help in interpretation of information. The arrangement of objects helps to distinguish their tribes of origin. However the focus of museum on historical objects alone is disadvantageous since it fails to capture contemporary culture. More recent objects should be incorporated in the collections. Bibliography Allen M. and Chiller B. (2001), learning our shared histories: Reconciliation and Aboriginal galleries in the Western Australia and South Australian Museums, Cultures of the Common Wealth journal. Dauber C. (2005) Revisionism or self reflexivity at the South Australian Museum: The museumising imagination in the post colonial era, Journal of Australian studies, 29:85 113-125. Hemming S. (2003), Objects and specimens; Conservative politics and the SA Aboriginal cultures gallery, Copyright Agency Limited. Read More