Visible art, invisible artists? the incorporation of aboriginal objects and knowledge in Australian museums

Abstract

The creative power and the economic valorization of Indigenous Australian arts tend to surprise outsiders who come into contact with it. Since the 1970sAustralia has seen the development of a system connecting artist coopera-

Connection: Digitally Representing Australian Aboriginal Art through the Immersive Virtual Museum Exhibition

“…In 1958, the New South Wales Art Gallery in Sydney displayed a collection of funerary logs carved in Arnhem wood and with pigments made of clay by painters in the tropical north. It was the first time that an Australian art museum had included Aboriginal artworks in its collection (Goldstein 2013). In recent years, museums have moved from repositories of venerable collections to spaces for speech and multisensory experiences (Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014).…”

“…In 1958, the New South Wales Art Gallery in Sydney exhibited a collection of funerary logs carved from Arnhem wood and painted with clay pigments by artists from the tropical north. This marked the first inclusion of Aboriginal artworks in an Australian art museum's collection (Goldstein 2013). In recent years, museums have evolved from being mere repositories of esteemed collections to becoming spaces for dialogue and multisensory experiences (Levent and Pascual-Leone 2014).…”