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Museums Victoria is seeking a Back to Country Curator, a First Peoples Identified position which will work with First Peoples communities and individuals to ensure their cultural material is returned to Country. Returning cultural material held in the First Peoples Collections back to people and Country is a priority of Museums Victoria as part of our First Peoples Strategy.

Applications for this position are restricted to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander males only.

ABOUT MUSEUMS VICTORIA:

Museums Victoria cares for the State scientific and cultural collections, providing visitor access, activities and events at five distinct venues:  Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum, Scienceworks, IMAX Cinema and world heritage listed Royal Exhibition Building.

To learn more about Museums Victoria, please visit museumvictoria.com.au/about/

ABOUT THE POSITION:

This position is primarily accountable for curatorial research and development to facilitate the return of collections to Country, give self-determination for cultural material in Museums Victoria’s care to First Peoples and build ethical and reciprocal partnerships between the Museum and communities. The position will undertake extensive community collaboration, as well as respond to State and Federal Acts relating to repatriation.

Duties:

The incumbent will be required to work collaboratively within the First Peoples team, and with internal and external stakeholders. This role will be expected to work across all the First Peoples Collections and will work closely with the curatorial and collections teams. This includes:

  1. Provide expert advice on cultural heritage material in the First Peoples Collections, and the return of cultural material to Country, and on internal and external queries related to cultural material.
  2. Manage funded projects, such as the Federal Government’s Indigenous Repatriation Program (IRP), respond to State and Federal Acts relating to repatriation, and work with relevant government agencies.
  3. Facilitate access to the collections and supply information for communities, upgrade content and context in collection databases, liaison with collection managers, information managers and other curatorial staff, and provision of expert advice to users of the collections.
  4. Ensure that appropriate cultural protocols are observed in the management of the collection, including briefing and supervision of other staff and visitors, and facilitating handover of cultural material and cultural ceremonies.
  5. Follow the Museum’s formal repatriation process and work with relevant internal committees, the Museums Board of Victoria and Subcommittees on the endorsement and approval of repatriation requests, including preparing required documentation.
  6. Contribute to collection development, documentation and associated policy and procedural development in the First Peoples Collections.
  7. Initiate and maintain relationships with relevant community groups, universities, government departments, cultural institutions, and other key stakeholders.
  8. Initiate, supervise and undertake original research, promote the use of collections for research, seek external grant funding, supervise research students, and publicly communicate the results of research in appropriate national and international forums and publications.
  9. Comply with Museums Victoria’s policies and procedures and with relevant legislation and regulations.

OTHER INFORMATION

To view the position description, visit Careers – Museums Victoria

In accordance with VCAT exemption number A9/2010, applications for this position are restricted to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander males only.

For more information and to apply visit: JobsVic.