Excavating MacGregor: re-connecting a colonial museum collection. Sensing the impacts of colonisation, the first Administrator of British New Guinea William MacGregor made a significant collection of objects specifically for its future citizens. This comprehensive legacy of 13 000 objects did not remain in the country but was dispersed to three Australian and six overseas museums. Our aim is to re-assemble and re-connect this material by 'excavating' its private and official components. This res ....Excavating MacGregor: re-connecting a colonial museum collection. Sensing the impacts of colonisation, the first Administrator of British New Guinea William MacGregor made a significant collection of objects specifically for its future citizens. This comprehensive legacy of 13 000 objects did not remain in the country but was dispersed to three Australian and six overseas museums. Our aim is to re-assemble and re-connect this material by 'excavating' its private and official components. This research aims to focus on the makers and traders to disentangle the social relationships embedded in the objects. Using material-centred, assemblage-based archaeological approaches, we aim to investigate how indigenous groups used objects to negotiate with the new colonial government.Read moreRead less
Understanding Australia in The Age of Humans: Localising the Anthropocene. The project aims to undertake a comprehensive investigation of Australia as a distinctive locality within the global idea of the new epoch of humanity known as the Anthropocene. It aims to analyse and narrate how human interventions have come to transform Australian environments in fundamental and enduring ways, showing the history, impact and implications of human-influenced biophysical planetary change within our distin ....Understanding Australia in The Age of Humans: Localising the Anthropocene. The project aims to undertake a comprehensive investigation of Australia as a distinctive locality within the global idea of the new epoch of humanity known as the Anthropocene. It aims to analyse and narrate how human interventions have come to transform Australian environments in fundamental and enduring ways, showing the history, impact and implications of human-influenced biophysical planetary change within our distinctive and vulnerable continental and ocean environments. It also plans to use both print and museum environments to develop new understandings of the cultural dimensions of the ‘Age of Humans’.Read moreRead less
Museum, field, metropolis, colony: practices of social governance. This project studies early twentieth-century Australian museums comparatively by considering parallel developments in Europe, North America, and New Zealand. Examining the relations between anthropological collections and social governance in colonial and metropolitan settings, it highlights the roles of museums in culturally diverse societies.
The Business of Art: Corporate Interventions into the Production, Display, and Reception of the Visual Arts. The corporate presence in the Australian art world has increased exponentially over the past decade, resulting in a redefinition of the arts as an industry not to be subsidised but marketed. This project's analysis of the art historical implications of this corporate presence and an assessment of the aesthetic impact of increased corporate interventions into the production and display of ....The Business of Art: Corporate Interventions into the Production, Display, and Reception of the Visual Arts. The corporate presence in the Australian art world has increased exponentially over the past decade, resulting in a redefinition of the arts as an industry not to be subsidised but marketed. This project's analysis of the art historical implications of this corporate presence and an assessment of the aesthetic impact of increased corporate interventions into the production and display of art is of vital significance to the future of Australia, not only in terms of the quality and type of art that is produced by Australian artists, but also to the way that Australians understand the role of the visual arts in their society.Read moreRead less
Explaining the Changing Roles of Collections, Curators and Exhibitions in the Production of Museum Images of the Pacific:1900-2000. This study advances the hypothesis, developed as the result of previous research, that museum representations of the Pacific between 1900-2000 were the result of the changing relationship between three factors: the construction of a particular cutural map of the region via the provenance attributed to collections, curatorial activities and exhbitions. It employs Edw ....Explaining the Changing Roles of Collections, Curators and Exhibitions in the Production of Museum Images of the Pacific:1900-2000. This study advances the hypothesis, developed as the result of previous research, that museum representations of the Pacific between 1900-2000 were the result of the changing relationship between three factors: the construction of a particular cutural map of the region via the provenance attributed to collections, curatorial activities and exhbitions. It employs Edward Said's post-colonial theory to explain the factors involved in the production of particular images and their transformation through the colonial and post-colonial periods. This is done in three case studies of two museum anthropology departments: The Australian Museum and the American Museum of Natural HistoryRead moreRead less