The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) collection has been described as the “most extensive and best contextualised collection of Indigenous Australia in the world” by founding Director of Significance International, Veronica Bullock.
Natasha Nadji hands priceless film of her grandfather, Big Bill Neidjie’s final funerary rite to AIATSIS for safe keeping during a re-enactment of an ancient Aboriginal Lorrkkon Ceremony in Canberra. L to R: Senator Scott Ryan, Mick Dodson, Senator for the Northern Territory Nova Peris, Justin Cooper, Ronald Lamilami, Natasha Nadji and Solomon Cooper.
Ms Bullock, who led the team responsible for an independent evaluation of the collection known in cultural heritage circles as a ‘Significance Assessment’, also described AIATSIS as “a site of pilgrimage.”
“The outstanding AIATSIS moving image, audio, pictorial and manuscripts sub-collections are an ‘inexhaustible’ source of insight for contemporary and future Australians,” Ms Bullock said.
“These items hold some answers to complex environmental and social challenges ranging from reducing suicide rates through language and family reclamation to evidencing and potentially halting biodiversity losses.
“The founders of AIATSIS would be pleased to see the collection being used for contemporary creative production by Indigenous Australians as directors rather than subjects.”
AIATSIS Chair, Professor Mick Dodson AM, said AIATSIS has long understood the value of the unique collection it holds in trust for the Australian nation, and particularly Indigenous Australia.
“We are very pleased that in our 50th year the assessment affirms our role as the national keeping place of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage,” Professor Dodson said.
“Today, our challenge is to secure ongoing funding to maintain our work in preserving this globally significant collection for future generations.
“There is no doubt AIATSIS is a keeping place of a vast record of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, but we are also a place of expertise, ideas, capacity, and vision for the benefit of all.”
The AIATSIS collection holds more than 650,000 photographs, 120,000 items of print research and rare books, 12,800 manuscript titles, 40,000 hours of recorded sound, 4,000 video titles and over 1,000 works of art and material culture.
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