The application of concept lattices to digital museum collection management and access. The project provides Australia access to, and champions for, leading-edge, content-based multimedia management and retrieval. For the past two decades, Australia has been a world leader in museum management, particularly in the areas of collection access and digitisation. This project will assist one of the nation's most significant museums to maintain a competitive edge nationally and internationally throu ....The application of concept lattices to digital museum collection management and access. The project provides Australia access to, and champions for, leading-edge, content-based multimedia management and retrieval. For the past two decades, Australia has been a world leader in museum management, particularly in the areas of collection access and digitisation. This project will assist one of the nation's most significant museums to maintain a competitive edge nationally and internationally through new approaches to annotating, searching and navigating digital collections. Trialled in this major institution, the project outcomes have great potential for dissemination and application throughout the collections sector.Read moreRead less
Aesthetic Education and Public Galleries. To study how galleries can enhance the quality of public engagement with the works of art on show. All galleries want to do this, but there is much uncertainty about how to understand 'quality of engagement' and about what galleries could and should do to enhance this. We shall provide conceptual analysis and a practical model for the provision of aesthetic education in public galleries. This will be a substantial contribution to a widely acknowledged p ....Aesthetic Education and Public Galleries. To study how galleries can enhance the quality of public engagement with the works of art on show. All galleries want to do this, but there is much uncertainty about how to understand 'quality of engagement' and about what galleries could and should do to enhance this. We shall provide conceptual analysis and a practical model for the provision of aesthetic education in public galleries. This will be a substantial contribution to a widely acknowledged problem. We hope to provide a workable model which can be used in gallery practice.Read moreRead less
Empowering Australia: Collecting and Interpreting the Material Culture of Australian Technology in New South Wales, 1880-1972. In Australian social history, the industrial museum occupies an important but largely forgotten place. Today, Sydney's exciting Powerhouse Museum is increasingly conscious of its legacy and lineage, dating from its creation as the Technological and Sanitary Museum of 1880. Nevertheless, much of the material culture of manufacture and innovation that lies in its collect ....Empowering Australia: Collecting and Interpreting the Material Culture of Australian Technology in New South Wales, 1880-1972. In Australian social history, the industrial museum occupies an important but largely forgotten place. Today, Sydney's exciting Powerhouse Museum is increasingly conscious of its legacy and lineage, dating from its creation as the Technological and Sanitary Museum of 1880. Nevertheless, much of the material culture of manufacture and innovation that lies in its collections remains uninterpreted and inaccessible to historians and the public. This project seeks to 'recover' the past of the Museum, and its role in Sydney's heritage of research, design and the applied arts; and to demonstrate the dynamic relevance of historical research to the Museum's present and forward plannning.Read moreRead less
Reconstructing the Spencer and Gillen Collection: Museums, Indigenous Perspectives and the Production of Cultural Knowledge. Spencer and Gillen's research placed Australia at the heart of world discourse in anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth century and they influenced the paradigm changes that resulted in the development of the modern discipline. Digital technology now enables the material record of their research to be recreated as a whole revealing the richness of Aboriginal socie ....Reconstructing the Spencer and Gillen Collection: Museums, Indigenous Perspectives and the Production of Cultural Knowledge. Spencer and Gillen's research placed Australia at the heart of world discourse in anthropology at the beginning of the twentieth century and they influenced the paradigm changes that resulted in the development of the modern discipline. Digital technology now enables the material record of their research to be recreated as a whole revealing the richness of Aboriginal society in central Australia at the turn of the twentieth century and uncovering a crucial period in the history of anthropology. The research project will advance understanding of Australia's role in the history of anthropology and related disciplines in addition to creating a cultural resource of great value not least for the Indigenous communities themselves.Read moreRead less
Reconceptualising Heritage Collections: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Museum Collections and Documentation. Museums worldwide are responding to technical advances in digital media. Collection databases and their availability on the World Wide Web are part of this initiative. The potential scope for collections documentation has been transformed by digital technologies, but in reality this has not been matched by the quality of information held in databases - its relationship to current knowled ....Reconceptualising Heritage Collections: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Museum Collections and Documentation. Museums worldwide are responding to technical advances in digital media. Collection databases and their availability on the World Wide Web are part of this initiative. The potential scope for collections documentation has been transformed by digital technologies, but in reality this has not been matched by the quality of information held in databases - its relationship to current knowledge, the needs of online users and new interdisciplinary approaches to material culture research. This project will reconceptualise museum collections acquisition, documentation practices, create a new multidisciplinary multimedia knowledge structure and reform museum practice to address these issues to greatly enhance the value of collections.Read moreRead less
Producers and Collectors: Uncovering the Role of Indigenous Agency in the Formation of Museum Collections. The research will make a significant contribution to Australian and world scholarship, show the innovation and leadership of Australian scholars in the study of museum collections, and promote goodwill and better diplomacy with Australia's nearest neighbours in PNG. Through examining the history of social relations between Papua New Guineans and 'outsiders' in a region that has long been t ....Producers and Collectors: Uncovering the Role of Indigenous Agency in the Formation of Museum Collections. The research will make a significant contribution to Australian and world scholarship, show the innovation and leadership of Australian scholars in the study of museum collections, and promote goodwill and better diplomacy with Australia's nearest neighbours in PNG. Through examining the history of social relations between Papua New Guineans and 'outsiders' in a region that has long been the focus of Australian interests, the project will contribute to the National Priority' Understanding our region and the world'. By unlocking information about the origin and history of ethnographic collections from Australia's oldest museum, their cultural significance will be shared more widely.
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The development and testing of a theory of the processes that shape material culture diversity using a New Guinea dataset. Australian museums hold approximately 150,000 artefacts from the Pacific. Estimates of overseas holdings suggest another 500,000. From these collections, objects are selected for research or exhibition based on restricted themes. No attempt has yet been made to utilise these collections in a comprehensive way to maximise their research potential. This has now been done for t ....The development and testing of a theory of the processes that shape material culture diversity using a New Guinea dataset. Australian museums hold approximately 150,000 artefacts from the Pacific. Estimates of overseas holdings suggest another 500,000. From these collections, objects are selected for research or exhibition based on restricted themes. No attempt has yet been made to utilise these collections in a comprehensive way to maximise their research potential. This has now been done for the north-central region of New Guinea and the available information provides the opportunity to develop a theory of the processes that bring about diversity of material culture. Such a theory would be of international significance for ethnologists and archaeologists and add value to publicly-funded collections.Read moreRead less
Exploring Relationships between Material Culture and Language, Propinquity, Population, Subsistence and Environment in the Upper Sepik-Central New Guinea Regions. This project will explore relationships between material culture, language, geographical proximity, population size and density, subsistence systems, and environmental characteristics in two adjacent regions - the upper Sepik and the highlands of central New Guinea. The role of trade, inter-marriage, migration, ritual and warfare in af ....Exploring Relationships between Material Culture and Language, Propinquity, Population, Subsistence and Environment in the Upper Sepik-Central New Guinea Regions. This project will explore relationships between material culture, language, geographical proximity, population size and density, subsistence systems, and environmental characteristics in two adjacent regions - the upper Sepik and the highlands of central New Guinea. The role of trade, inter-marriage, migration, ritual and warfare in affecting relationships among the variables will be assessed. This is the first project to examine so many objects (8000+) in such detail for two contrasting regions in the Pacific. It will clarify the role of language vis-a-vis other variables in determining the identifiability of objects produced in those regions and has practical cultural heritage outcomes.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
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR0566962
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$81,105.00
Summary
Developing a prototype multi-institutional search engine for Australian Indigenous collections. We will investigate technical and cultural issues, and identify an optimal model for developing a multi-institutional search engine for Australian Indigenous collections. This will be achieved through the development of a prototype search engine linking two Australian museum collections. Current digital models for managing and accessing materials in multiple formats (audio, film, photographic and prin ....Developing a prototype multi-institutional search engine for Australian Indigenous collections. We will investigate technical and cultural issues, and identify an optimal model for developing a multi-institutional search engine for Australian Indigenous collections. This will be achieved through the development of a prototype search engine linking two Australian museum collections. Current digital models for managing and accessing materials in multiple formats (audio, film, photographic and print materials) will be investigated, and a set of cultural protocols developed for a subset of materials from one geographical area. Such an online research tool has the potential to facilitate research across disciplines, encourage collaborations between cultural institutions, and re-connect Indigenous communities with collections.Read moreRead less