Melbourne Museum’s Kimberley Moulton reports on her recent participation in the British Council’s ACCELERATE programme.

I am a descendant of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal people from the north-east of Victoria, Australia, and my heritage also extends to Mauritius, Germany, Scotland, England and Portugal. My people have lived and cared for their country, culture and each other for more than 60,000 years, and this spirit continues through me. I work at the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum, which celebrates the living cultures of the Aboriginal people of Victoria and diversity of Australia. It’s part of Museum Victoria, which cares for the state’s scientific and cultural collections. I develop exhibitions for the Birrarung Gallery, a space within the centre dedicated to contemporary art and cultural expression by the Victorian Aboriginal community.

In 2013 I was one of five recipients from Australia chosen for the British Council’s ACCELERATE programme, a leadership exchange for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working in the creative industries. As part of the programme supported by the British Council I spent time at Tate Liverpool, Museum of Trans-Atlantic Slavery Liverpool, British Museum, Saffron Walden Museum, Pitt-Rivers Museum Oxford University, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology Cambridge University, The Royal Academy London and the Serpentine Gallery in London exploring their collections, curatorial practice and public engagement. It was important for me to visit these places to form connections with the Aboriginal collections, establish professional networks and explore the relationships between Aboriginal Australia and our representation in these institutions. Another focus of my time was to observe how these institutions have engaged artists to respond to collections with contemporary new work, creating new stories.

Understanding the complex history of cultural appropriation in the landscape of museums and galleries is important. The representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in museums has long been through objects that were seen as relics of the past, physical evidence of a culture that was ‘dying out’. The most ‘authentic’ of these, unimpaired by the white man’s tools, were often displayed in typological clusters to compare the evolution of man, gazing through a darwinistic lens. With the Age of Enlightenment and the ‘discovery’ of Australia, came anthropologists, early explorers, amateur collectors and missionaries. They began taking, trading and buying objects and human remains, often in circumstances that were incredibly unethical. The UK has a significant collection of Indigenous cultural material, these items were collected for both their study and their aesthetic and whilst they are from our past they also represent our present. For some, our identity and culture are inherently linked to these objects. They are a tangible connection to our ancestors, and embody the cultural connection we have to our history and to our reality.

Some museums and galleries still present our cultural material in a dated ethnographic way, and homogenise us as one people, this continues to perpetuate an incorrect representation of Indigenous cultures. It can be frustrating to see exhibitions that misrepresent who we are, and undervalue the complexity of our culture. The question I asked while visiting the institutions that held our material was if there is no collaboration or engagement with Australian Indigenous people, the oldest living culture in the world, how can a collection remain relevant to today, if our voice is missing, how are these exhibitions truly representative? I strongly believe that Indigenous artists and community engaging with objects gives us agency over our own representation and self-determination within the space and this can assist in‘re-claiming’ our position within museums and galleries.

ACCELERATE was an amazing experience, there is so much opportunity to learn and share knowledge between Australia and the UK. Having an open dialogue and building trusted professional relationships are so important in creating new ways to tell old stories. There is much that we share in our histories, and working together is the next step in our journey.