Strategic priority 2

The communications campaign to raise awareness about the crucial role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages to people’s lives, marking International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019 (IYIL19), continued throughout 2019 alongside exhibitions and events. In developing this campaign, AIATSIS engaged with the then Department of Communications and the Arts, and with a number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to tell the story of their language.

The AIATSIS monthly e-newsletter was issued throughout the year to 4,500 subscribers. AIATSIS’ social media presence further extended its communications reach.

Media opportunities were generated for a range of activities including IYIL19, progress and achievements in the Return of Cultural Heritage pilot project, the Ngulla Wellamunagaa exhibition, the announcement of the Indigenous Research Exchange Grants program, and AIATSIS’ program of public events.

AIATSIS also undertook strategic planning for communications during the year, developing a Communication Strategy 2019–2023 and a website refresh, both of which apply a user design methodology. Internal and external consultation was undertaken to inform the website refresh and a refresh of the AIATSIS brand.

AIATSIS’ program of public events during 2019–2020 achieved high levels of participation and engagement, despite the challenges emerging in early 2020. Events celebrating IYIL19 (see the Feature 1) included the launch of a Welcome to Country in Ngunnawal, the traditional Aboriginal language of the ACT region, at the Canberra International Airport; and the Our Language: Keeping Us Strong exhibition presented in the AIATSIS foyer and online.

AIATSIS’ annual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Market took place from 6 to 7 December 2019, presenting work from a range of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and art centres from around Australia. The 2019 event saw 21 art centres and a range of artists from remote, regional and metropolitan Australia come to Canberra to showcase their works, attracting over 2,500 visitors over the two-day event. The event also featured musical performances, including from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander singer Isaiah Firebrace.

AIATSIS held its International Women’s Day event on 6 March 2020, including presentation of the annual Shirley Ann Williams award for an exemplary female employee to AIATSIS staff member Jenny Wood.

More than 120 people attended the 2019 Wentworth Lecture, ‘Innovation—Indigenous Genius Then and Now’, delivered by Professor Marcia Langton AM on 25 September at the National Press Club of Australia. The Wentworth Lecture is held in honour of the Hon W.C. Wentworth AO. Established in 1978, the lecture series pays tribute to Mr Wentworth’s contribution to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies and encourages Australians to gain a better understanding of issues at the heart of the nation’s development.

AIATSIS is providing resources and services to individuals and organisations through a number of significant projects. The return of Tardun School images and records from the Pallottine collection to former students is one example.

Work also continued under AIATSIS’ 2018 memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Cultural Centre (KALACC) to digitise their collection, containing nearly 30 years of footage capturing the rich, unique culture and history of the Kimberley region of Western Australia, so that digital copies of audio and video materials can be returned to KALACC. The originals will remain housed at AIATSIS to best ensure their long-term preservation. In November 2019, AIATSIS staff travelled to Fitzroy Crossing to attend KALACC’s annual general meeting to present the directors with copies of the more than 400 audio and video tapes that had been digitised.

In September 2019, AIATSIS technicians presented workshops on the preservation of documents, photographs and moving image media at the 20th Remote Indigenous Media Festival hosted by First Nations Media Australia on Waiben (Thursday Island).

The Paper and Talk workshop, building research and archival skills among community researchers from five language groups, was another event that supported capacity and self-determination for communities.

The AIATSIS Stanner Award is presented biennially to the best academic manuscript written by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander author. In August, the 2019 Award went to Kamilaroi and Wonnarua author Dr Debbie Bargallie for her manuscript Maintaining the racial contract: everyday racism and the impact of racial microaggressions on Indigenous employees in the Australian Public Service. The book was published by Aboriginal Studies Press in June 2020 as Unmasking the racial contract: Indigenous voices on racism in the Australian Public Service.

Five other books were published by Aboriginal Studies Press in 2019–2020, including four dictionaries that are part of AIATSIS’ Dictionaries Project. They were:

• Mudburra to English dictionary (November 2019) - presenting Mudburra words with English translations, illustrations and encyclopaedic information about plants, animals and cultural practices, plus a guide to Mudburra grammar, an English index, and hand signs used by Mudburra people
• Does the media fail Aboriginal political aspirations? (February 2020)—a team of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal researchers examine 45 years of media responses to Aboriginal initiatives seeking justice and self-determination, from the 1972 Larrakia petition to the Queen to the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart
• Gurgun Mibinyah (April 2020)—a dictionary of the northern varieties of the language Yugambeh-Bundjalung, or Bandjalangic, spoken from the Tweed River area of the north-east corner of New South Wales to the Logan River area in the Gold Coast area of southern Queensland
• Dhurga dictionary and learners grammar: a south-east coast NSW Aboriginal language (June 2020)—a concise compilation of the Dhurga language, spoken from south of Nowra to Narooma and west to Braidwood and Araluen, with over 730 words including informant and recorder details as a validation of authenticity
• Ngiyampaa wordworld: thipingku yuwi, maka ngiya: names of birds and other words (second edition, June 2020)—stories, example sentences and songs in the Wangaaypuwan dialect of Ngiyampaa, language of the Pilaarrkiyalu, Nhiilyikiyalu and Karulkiyalu people from western New South Wales.

Two issues of Australian Aboriginal Studies journal were also published during the year: 2019 Issue 2 in December 2019, and 2020 Issue 1 in June 2020.

Exhibitions in 2019–2020 presented knowledge from AIATSIS’ collection and expertise to the world in engaging and captivating ways. One was the Our Language: Keeping Us Strong exhibition, presented in the AIATSIS foyer and online. Another was Ngulla Wellamunagaa: Trees That Have Survived and Revived, presented at the National Museum of Australia First Australians Focus gallery from 5 December 2019 until 23 March 2020.

AIATSIS supplied rare historical footage that was screened in the Nirin: 22nd Biennale of Sydney contemporary art exhibition (June–September 2020). Shot by H.R. Balfour in 1949, the footage documents the removal of sacred dendroglyphs (carved trees) from the Kalimangl Bora Ground in northern New South Wales. AIATSIS facilitated permission from the Kamilaroi community to exhibit the film and arranged community screenings prior to the film’s public exhibition. This project was the first collaboration between AIATSIS and the Biennale of Sydney under a recently signed MoU.

In another small and unique project, AIATSIS worked with the Australian Embassy in Vietnam to license the use of an image of an artwork by Aboriginal artist Jimmy Pike, Partiri—Flowers, on greeting cards produced in celebration of the Tet (lunar new year). These images will be seen by the embassy’s clients and contacts across Vietnam and other countries. AIATSIS holds the largest collection of Pike’s original artworks, donated in 2016 by Pat Lowe, the artist’s wife and long-time collaborator.

Grow educational resources

In the culmination of three years of work, Our Land, Our Stories was launched at Parliament House on 30 July 2019 by the Hon Dan Tehan MP, Minister for Education, and the Hon Linda Burney MP, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians.

Our Land, Our Stories is a media-rich educational series for lower, middle and upper primary school students, exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, peoples and cultures, created by Nelson, a Cengage company in partnership with AIATSIS. More than 35 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people contributed stories to this ground breaking resource.

The series aligns with the central cross-curriculum priority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories. It comprises three books each for lower, middle and upper primary stages, with themed student cards, teacher resource books and an online gallery of our collections material. The majority of the content has been written by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors and is supported with images from our collections. The series is designed to educate non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students about Australia’s First Peoples and their cultures and heritage, and to provide an opportunity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to see themselves in the curricula.

We also released free online teaching resources for The Little Red Yellow Black Book, to assist secondary educators to implement and embed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cross-curriculum priority into their planning, teaching and assessment. The resources include activities, worksheets and suggestions on assessment, with step-by-step instructions on how to deliver the classroom lessons. They build on teachers’ intercultural understanding and support their professional knowledge and proficiency. Each resource includes links to the national curriculum and the organising ideas of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures.

We also contributed to education programs and outcomes through existing products and 
a range of on-demand activities including school visits to our location in Canberra, lectures and presentations to academic and tertiary student audiences, responses to student enquiries, and hosting student interns.

Core Cultural Learning

The Core Cultural Learning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia Foundation Course (Core) is an innovative online course developed to strengthen individual and organisational cultural capability. Core was developed by AIATSIS in partnership with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Social Services, building on our years of research and involvement in cultural competence initiatives and informed by our research collaboration with the University of Sydney’s National Centre for Cultural Competency.

Core is currently available free of charge to the APS, with six additional agencies subscribing during the year.

We have commenced commercialisation of Core, offering licences on a fee-for-service basis to governments and organisations outside the Commonwealth. Twelve non-APS clients subscribed to Core during 2019–2020, a testament to the reputation Core has already established, and discussions with more prospective clients are underway. New clients included the Australian National University (ANU) (ACT), the Victorian Ombudsman, Lifeline, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, HealthDirect (NSW), Savannah Guides (QLD) and Pivot Support Services (WA).

Performance criterion: Collection growth

Performance measure: Number and quality of public communication, education and engagement

Target: 70% of respondents assess AIATSIS communication, education and engagement provide high level impact

Outcome: While the number of outward communications declined, reflecting that AIATSIS was focused this year on a smaller number of large projects (rather than many small projects), the number of incoming enquiries in response increased dramatically, indicating high levels of interest and engagement. Online engagement increased significantly. The evaluation process to ascertain public assessment of the quality of AIATSIS communications is still being developed.

Performance criterion: Engagement with education—increased contribution to Australian curriculum and cultural learning

Performance measure: Number and type of activities with an education focus

Target: Increase from 2018–2019 baseline 

Outcome: The target was exceeded—both the number and the types of activities with an education focus increased relative to the previous year.

Performance criterion: Public events

Performance measure: Number and satisfaction of attendees at AIATSIS events

Target: 5 individual events

Outcome: The target of 5 events was exceeded, despite challenges to public events in this financial year. Satisfaction levels were high. This was a new measure and target in 2019–2020.

Performance criterion: Aboriginal Studies Press (ASP) publications program 

Performance measures: 

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander author engagement
• Majority Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors

Target:

• Publish up to 8 publications annually across all types
• Majority Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors

Outcome: The total number of publications exceeded the target, and the majority of authors were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.