Tag Archives: indigenous australia

Western Australia Scraps Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Laws Designed to Stop ‘Another Juukan Gorge’

Posted on: August 22, 2023 by Elizabeth Pearson

The State of Western Australia is repealing laws it introduced “to prevent another Juukan Gorge”, after its reforms were labelled too prescriptive, complicated and confusing. The Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2021 (WA) (2021 Act) was enacted after 46,000-year-old sacred Aboriginal rock shelters were controversially destroyed by Rio Tinto during a mine expansion project in 2020. […]

Australia Investigates Allegations of Painting by Non-Indigenous Studio Staff

Posted on: May 19, 2023 by Elizabeth Pearson

Australia’s National Gallery and three governments have launched separate inquiries into allegations reported by a national newspaper that non-Indigenous studio staff painted on First Nations artists’ works, including art due to be exhibited in the country’s capital in June. The Australian published allegations on 7 April 2023 that non-Indigenous staff at Tjala Arts Centre, a […]

Aboriginal Cultural Heritage: Legislative overhaul proposed in New South Wales, Australia

Posted on: May 13, 2018 by Elizabeth Pearson

Aboriginal cultural heritage law in New South Wales is facing its biggest reform in more than 40 years.  The State Government invited public comment and is currently considering submissions received on a draft bill to create a standalone Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act,[i] amid widespread agreement that legislative change is long overdue.[ii] Aboriginal and Torres Strait […]

Criticism mounts ahead of BM show on Aboriginal art

Posted on: April 20, 2015 by Alexander Herman

Having highlighted the issue in an earlier post, the criticism of the upcoming British Museum exhibition, Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilization (a purposely ambiguous title?) has become more vociferous with a cutting article published recently in The Guardian provocatively entitled ‘Preservation or plunder? The battle over the British Museum’s Indigenous Australian show’. Past events involving the Dja Dja Wurrung bark etchings are […]

Demand for return of bark etchings as new exhibition set to open

Posted on: March 13, 2015 by Alexander Herman

The British Museum has an upcoming exhibition of art and artefacts from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders entitled Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilization set to open on 23 April 2015. However, as one recent Guardian article makes clear, all is not well in relations between the museum and representatives of certain indigenous groups, namely the Dja Dja Wurrung people of central Victoria. This […]