Ancient knowledge shapes the future of bark painting conservation in museums in the 21st Century, ANMM, 16 Sept 2026

Australian National Maritime Museum research advances global conservation of Indigenous bark paintings

A new paper by Australian National Maritime Museum specialists, to be presented at the International Council of Museums – Committee for Conservation (ICOM-CC) conference in Norway on September 18, outlines a landmark conservation approach for the museum’s Saltwater Bark Collection, demonstrating how Indigenous knowledge and Western conservation science can work together to care for culturally significant bark paintings.

The paper, The Saltwater Bark Collection conservation management plan: Bridging the conservation science gap through an exchange of traditional Indigenous and Western conservation knowledge, explores the museum’s collaboration with Yolŋu knowledge holders to develop culturally responsive conservation strategies for 80 bark paintings that document Yolŋu law, culture and sea rights ownership.

Created by 47 artists from 15 clans, the Saltwater Bark Collection is among the most significant cultural holdings in the Museum’s care. The works were created as legal, spiritual and cultural evidence connected to Yolŋu Sea Country and the Blue Mud Bay Sea Rights claim, asserting that Country extends beyond the shoreline into living saltwater environments.

The research highlights the conservation challenges posed by bark as a living, responsive material. Bark paintings can expand, contract, curl, split or delaminate in response to environmental change, creating complex preservation risks for institutions that hold Indigenous cultural materials.

Central to the paper is a two-way knowledge model developed through reciprocal consultation between the museum and Yolŋu artists and custodians at Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Art Centre in Yirrkala, East Arnhem Land.

Museum conservators shared condition observations and monitoring data, while Yolŋu knowledge holders demonstrated traditional bark harvesting, preparation, firing and ochre practices. That exchange revealed important insights, including the significance of a second firing process after painting and its possible relationship to the long-term dimensional stability of the Saltwater barks. The finding reframes conservation decision-making by recognising that scientific analysis must be interpreted alongside cultural authority, making practice and Yolŋu Law.

Significance for conservation

The paper is significant because it positions Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, free, prior and informed consent, and community-led decision-making at the centre of conservation practice. Rather than treating bark paintings solely as fragile  substrates, it recognises them as carriers of sacred knowledge, collective ownership, legal meaning and continuing cultural responsibility.

For the wider conservation field, the project offers a practical model for decolonising collection care. It demonstrates how material analysis, environmental monitoring, mounting trials and conservation management planning can be governed by Indigenous authority and shaped by reciprocal learning.

The museum’s approach also has broader application for galleries, museums and community collections caring for Indigenous bark and wood objects. Its adaptable monitoring protocols show how conservation can move beyond fixed technical thresholds to include culturally informed risk indicators, oral knowledge, consent pathways and locally governed decision-making.

These findings are important because bark paintings are held in public museums, university collections and private collections around the world, often far from the communities whose knowledge, law and cultural authority they embody. By linking environmental monitoring, mounting design and material analysis with Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property principles, the museum’s research offers practical guidance for protecting bark paintings wherever they are held. It encourages custodians to move beyond a purely technical model of preservation and to adopt care practices that recognise bark paintings as living cultural records, requiring both physical protection and culturally governed decision-making.

Institutions globally with significant bark painting collections, holdings or exhibition histories include the Australian National Maritime Museum, National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, Australian Museum, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection at the University of Virginia, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth, Asia SocietyMuseum in New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the University of Oregon, Smithsonian Institution, British Museum, Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, and Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Matt Poll, Head of Indigenous Programs at the Australian National Maritime Museum and a co-author of the paper, said the project demonstrated the importance of placing Indigenous cultural authority at the centre of conservation decision-making.

‘These bark paintings carry Yolŋu law, knowledge and rights in sea country,’ Mr Poll said. ‘Caring for them properly means listening to Yolŋu custodians, respecting Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, and recognising that conservation is not only a technical practice but a cultural responsibility.’

Co-author Jeffrey Fox, Senior Conservator at the Museum said, ‘Bark is a complex and responsive material, and its behaviour cannot be fully understood through Western conservation science alone,’ Mr Fox said. ‘The knowledge shared by Yolŋu artists about harvesting, preparation and firing is essential to understanding how these works move, change and endure.’

Museum Director and CEO Ms Daryl Karp AM said the paper reflected the museum’s commitment to caring for collections in ways that respect cultural authority and advance professional practice.

‘The Saltwater Bark Collection is not only a remarkable body of art; it is an expression of Yolŋu law, knowledge and enduring connection to sea country, ’ Ms Karp said. ‘This research shows that conservation is strongest when scientific expertise is guided by the people whose culture, authority and knowledge are embedded in the works themselves.

‘By working with Yolŋu custodians, the museum is helping to build a model of conservation that is technically rigorous, culturally accountable and relevant to Indigenous collections around the world.’

The paper outlines several preliminary outcomes, including the development of a sensitivity rating system for monitoring bark movement, trials of alternative mounting methods, and the identification of possible links between traditional firing processes and material stability.During the museum’s 2017 exhibition Gapu Monuk – Saltwater – Journey to Sea Country, weekly monitoring recorded dimensional changes in several bark paintings. Some works curled or increased in depth, requiring passive humidification in the conservation laboratory before they could safely return to storage. These observations helped shape a more nuanced understanding of display risk, environmental response and mount design.

Future research will include bark fibre analysis, further consultation with Yolŋu artists, and final ratification of the conservation management plan with community input. All proposed research will proceed under Yolŋu authority, with consent, attribution, benefit-sharing and culturally governed access to data embedded in the process.

The presentation will share the museum’s findings with international conservation professionals, contributing to global discussion about ethical, community-led approaches to the care of Indigenous cultural material.

About the Museum’s Saltwater Bark Collection

The Australian National Maritime Museum’s Saltwater Bark Collection comprises 80 Yolŋu bark paintings created before 1998 by artists from across north-east Arnhem Land. The works document ancestral saltwater country and were created in response to threats including illegal fishing and sacred site desecration. They form part of a longer history of Yolŋu political art, following the precedent of the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, and remain powerful statements of cultural sovereignty and maritime law.