I Can Still Hear Them Calling. Echoes of My Ancestors

Abstract

This essay is my personal and reflective piece as a Yorta Yorta woman working and researching in museums. Drawing from my experience of collections, it critically considers what it means for museums and galleries to have collected and to continue collecting historical and contemporary cultural material from Australian First Peoples. My approach to the subject matter is through a personal storyline narrative that aims to unpack the colonial stream of Western learning and communication through writing in which I have been educated and to which First Peoples are expected to adhere.

I work in Australia and have visited collections and museums across the world. I constantly think about how the legacy of collecting institutions and the representation of First Peoples has affected the space of contemporary art today. With the intersection of art and the "˜artefact"™ expanding beyond their historical binary, and an increase in First Peoples working in these spaces, how can we recontextualise cultural material and further our agency and thinking around the sovereignty of our objects?