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This essay proposes a future interventive exhibition, titled Our Australia, which will document the evolving history of the rights of the Aboriginal community of Australia. It will focus on two paralleling narratives; the unfair treatment of the Indigenous peoples, and the progression of their acceptance as voting citizens in a democratic country. More specifically, it will often highlight the journey of Neville Bonner, Australia’s fist Indigenous Senator, as a human figure who’s journey can be followed throughout the museum space. The use of a human figure as a character will provide a personal element to the journey throughout the building and will allow visitors to connect on a personal level with the country’s history.

Our Australia will consist of two interpretive activities, ‘Our Story’, and ‘Our Journey’ which engage visitors and provoke their interaction with the core theme. Visitors’ personal reflection is the key aim in these activities. The exhibition will be developed with a group of Indigenous citizens, all recruited through an application process. The application process could raise ethical questions about equality, however will be implemented purely to ensure that the citizens are willing to dedicate enough time to the exhibition. The applicants will not be discriminated against because of age, gender, education level or anything else, but will instead be chosen based on their willingness and commitment.

Our Australia will promote the heritage of the country and it’s native peoples, whilst providing an avenue for the Indigenous community to participate in the heritage sector and have their views fairly represented. The proposed intervention would enhance and emphasise Yes: The Ongoing Story of the 1967 Referendum, a current temporary exhibition which marks the anniversary of the referendum in which Aboriginals were allowed the right to vote.

Our Australia will be housed permanently in The Museum of Australian Democracy. The location for the exhibition has been carefully chosen for a number of reasons. The most obvious being because the museum was established to preserve the history of democracy in the country. In addition, the exhibition topic is controversial, especially when considering the evolving democratic rights of the Indigenous peoples, and the museum is the exact kind of place to house this sort of reflection.

In the museum’s Entity Resource and Planned Performance document, The Museum of Australian Democracy prides itself on being a space for enriched experiences and conversations around democratic traditions, therefore this exhibition will make practical use of the museum’s aims. The exhibition will encourage visitors to walk around Old Parliament House, the building the museum occupies, whilst imagining what it would have been like for Bonner. In addition they will be reminded of the events throughout Australia’s past through miniature exhibition displays throughout the museum.

OPH was the home of Australia’s Federal Parliament from 1927 to 1988 and is therefore a site of important national heritage. The museum has inhabited the building since 2009 and aims to preserve the heritage of the building itself and the collections within it for future generations. “The museum offers an exciting program of exhibitions and engaging activities which explain how the building, its spaces and objects connect us with Australian democracy” [1].

Being a democratic country, Australia’s citizens have voted their leaders into power, and all citizens have the right to run for a leadership position. This ultimately gives the power of ruling the country to its people, who are all fairly represented and have their own right to freedom of speech, equality and choice. The museum itself states that democracy is based on four main principles [2]:

• A belief in the individual who is moral and rational
• A belief in reason and progress
• A belief in a society that is consensual
• A belief in shared power

Through the exhibition, the museum will promote democracy and the four main principles previously outlined, but will encourage visitors to reflect upon the changes in the democratic society which Australia is today. Most importantly, a belief in a society that is consensual, will be key to the exhibition. With this in mind, visitors will gain a more rounded and educated understanding of their country and white Australians, among other visitors, will be able to further appreciate the struggles of the Aboriginal peoples. In turn, any Aboriginal visitors will be able to self educate on their history and the community partnership activity will provide the Indigenous community with a consensual opportunity to share their own interpretive story.

Our Australia will build on the foundation principles of the Object Journeys collaboration project at the British Museum. In this program, curators worked with Indigenous people to develop new partnerships with the community and gain a more culturally informed knowledge of what they were exhibiting. This results in a more fair and accurate representation of the exhibition in which the community in question have the right to make decisions on what is or is not exhibited and the opportunity to interpret their own story. More importantly the program allows a more positive critique of the museum’s relationship with community partners. [3]

When looking into the history of the Aboriginal people of Australia, they have suffered great wrongdoing at the hands of the first white European settlers and the government which they founded. It was not until recently, in 1962, that Aboriginal people were allowed to vote in the Australian federal election. In 1965 Queensland became the last state to allow Aboriginal people to vote in state elections. Finally, in 1967 the referendum allowed Aboriginal people to be counted on the census as living in the country. Before these changes, Aborigines were effectively an invisible population without rights. Following the 1967 referendum, Neville Bonner joined the Liberal Party. In 1971, he became the first Aboriginal person to sit in the Commonwealth Parliament as a Senator.

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Museum of Australian Democracy, ‘A Life Recorded in Bark’ [accessed 12 January 2018]

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The Museum of Australian Democracy is home to an indigenous bark painting by Bonner’s nephew, Bill Congoo. The painting documents Bonner’s life in four scenes. The first, his birth at Ukerebagh Island, where he sits on his father’s lap, as a baby, near a humpy (a small temporary shelter). In the second, Bonner is living on Palm island with his wife and five sons where they hunted dugongs and turtles for food. The third scene depicts Bonner’s life in Ipswich where he began mixing with white European Australians and commenced his political involvement. The final panel in the artwork shows Bonner sitting with three other white politicians when he becomes a Senator.

This extraordinary artwork will be the basis of the ‘Our Journey’ activity which makes up one half of the exhibition. ‘Our Journey’ will provide a strong narrative to move audiences through the museum from entrance to exit. The visual language in the artwork, such as the foot prints and the water holes will be used throughout the museum on vinyl decals which will be stuck to the floors and walls of the museum spaces. There will be two sets of footprints, one white set of shoe prints and one black set of bare feet, representing the white politicians in the building and the mixture of Aboriginal footprints over time. Although this distinction will most likely cause political implications due to the delicate boundaries of what could be considered racist, it is important to show the separation of the two races and their unification within the building, resulting in a society where Aboriginal people can now walk freely amongst the white people.

Starting outside the museum, ‘Our Journey’ will continue up the steps to the main doors and through into King’s Hall. The footprints will then lead off into other areas of the museum where visitors can view other exhibitions, both temporary and permanent. At various points, an interactive scenario will take place which allows the visitor to contemplate. For example, at the entrance to the Senate Chamber, there will be multiple sets of white shoe prints and only one set of black foot prints which symbolises Bonner, an Aboriginal facing a chamber full of white politicians. There will be a small activity card on the interpretive panel which introduces the scenario and provokes a role playing activity. Each scenario will educate the visitor and allows them to ponder and reflect upon the history of the building and what might have happened in the location they are standing in. The museum will work with the group of selected Indigenous community partners to research their archives and the records they hold on Bonner. Through this, they will produce multiple scenarios where they are able to recreate similar scenes.

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Museum of Australian Democracy Floorplan

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Museum of Australian Democracy Floorplan

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In King’s Hall, a large open space in the entry to the museum, will be  ‘Our Story’, which forms the second half of the exhibition. It will take the form of a series of photographs from the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of photographic records of Australian Aboriginals, in conjunction with objects from the museum collection. The museum has previously worked with AIATSIS and has recently developed Yes: The Ongoing Story of the 1967 Referendum, an exhibition currently on display.

All items in ‘Our Story’ will have been chosen by the Indigenous community partners to represent the key events which have changed the democratic rights of the Aboriginal population. Each item will have a short piece of interpretive text which will tell the story of the item in question. The items will be placed in the hall but not in a linear order. The ‘Our Journey’ activity will ask visitors to guess the year in which each event (signified by the image or artefact) took place. There will be a small activity sheet which allows the visitors to record their responses on. The response sheets will be returned back to the museum and used as data to discover how educated the visitors are on such topics. The museum can learn from these response sheets and put together future exhibitions, more aware of what the community does and doesn’t know about Aboriginal rights and their involvement in democracy.

The Museum of Australian Democracy will work extensively with chosen members of the local Aboriginal community in preparation for the exhibtion. The museum will encourage them to participate in workshops where they will design further Indigenous styled artworks for the decals used in the ‘Our Story’ activity and decide on the narratives of the imagery and artefacts exhibited in the ‘Our Journey’ activity. Furthermore, all text within the exhibition will be written by the Aboriginal community partners but will be subtly edited by the museum to specifically fit within the Ekarv guidelines. This allows the community partners to have their voice and find power in selecting what they want the public to know, but also allows curators to keep interpretation clear and concise.

Our Australia will follow guidelines from the Museums Association, more specifically it will “work in partnership with communities, audiences, potential audiences and supporters of the museum” in line with point 1.6 from the Code of Ethics. [5] The museum will also run the exhibition alongside their already existing Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) which brings awareness and greater understanding between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians through training of staff and promoting reconciliation within the museum sector. [6] The RAP will ensure that staff are aware of the sensitive topic and contents of the exhibition and the museum will therefore take necessary steps to ensure that all staff are educated on the exhibition contents prior to its opening.

In addition to what has already been outlined, Our Australia raises further questions of professional ethics and political representation. Funding for the Museum of Australian Democracy is wholly provided through the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The museum is funded by the ATO on the basis that it will provide an “enriched understanding and appreciation of the political legacy and intrinsic value of the Australian democracy”. [7] Budget statements are publicly available on the Australian Government Department of Communication and the Arts website. It is obvious that the museum has a small budget which would undoubtedly place pressure and responsibility on the museum as a Corporate Commonwealth Entity to raise further funds itself.

In 2016, the Museum of Australian Democracy became a Corporate Commonwealth Entity which means it has “a separate legal personality from the Commonwealth and can act in it’s own right”. [8] This indicates that all assets of the museum belong to the museum itself and not the government body, even if the assets were acquired for the museum (by the government) before 2016. Assets cannot be sold for the financial gain of the Commonwealth Government, therefore the sale of assets provides funding towards the museum itself, however if the museum is to operate under the Museum Association’s Code of Ethics, they should not sell culturally valuable assets for financial gain. This raises both political and ethical questions around the importance of the collection and the balance between preserving Australia’s democratic heritage through the preservation of the museum’s collection, or alternatively, the importance of raising funds which support the upkeep of the museum and collection.

Although the museum operates as it’s own entity separated from the Commonwealth, it takes funding from the ATO which surely has leverage on the museum’s programme and events, more specifically the ethos and operation of the museum. This means that the museum, which prides itself on the democracy of the people, is actually funded and governed by higher government powers. This is both a political and ethical implication.

Australia’s tax payers are funding the museum and its visitors believe the museum is celebrating is democratic success. However they are not made aware that there is a higher power controlling the museum and collection which surely will result in certain items being forbidden from exhibition so not to embarrass or humiliate the Australian Government in periods of historic violence and turmoil.  This is exactly the opposite of what Our Australia aims to do - open up discussion around a controversial topic which throughout history so far, has been covered up.

Therefore there needs to be a distinct boundary between the funding and the collections and exhibition managers, and the museum needs to operate its events and exhibition program completely independent from its funding body. In addition, the museum needs to make it clearer to the visitor where the funding is coming from.

On top of the ATO funding, the museum welcomes tax-deductible gift donations of A$2 or more through their website [9] and in house. Moreover, the museum operates a small cafe and shop which provides further income, although it is not clear if this income supports the upkeep of the museum or if the cafe and shop operate on an individual business basis. The latter would provide opportunity for small business partners to become involved in the museum and could supply an opportunity for business sponsorship of specific exhibitions. This would in turn provide a marketing strategy and an avenue of funding which could be utilised in the future.

Possibly the most controversial issue regarding political representation is the discourse of Indigenous communities working towards a brief outlined and managed most likely by white Australians in a European Colonial setting. This is something which is difficult to work around when trying not to be racist in segregating the black from white, but instead helpful and aiming to facilitate an opportunity for the Indigenous community to have their voice heard in addition to promoting the equal rights of the Indigenous community through the exhibition. Providing an opportunity for their voices to be heard is key to this exhibition and the museum will promote the exhibition as being produced by their new Indigenous community partners. The museum will act as a platform which will ‘connect different users who act as content creators, distributors, consumers, critics, and collaborators’ [10] and the museum will be a place where ‘wider Indigenous ethics in post-colonial museum contexts may be discussed’. [11]

The Museum of Australian Democracy will facilitate the learning of the community members whilst gaining cross-cultural understanding through an opportunity to befriend their new partners and connect on a personal level. The approach of reaching out and attempting to create a partnership must be handled sensitively and must aim to benefit the museum, its visitors and the Indigenous partners together and equally. It is important that the Indigenous community members are treated with equality and respect and that they are not intimidated, but instead supported and engaged.

In The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics, Lynch discusses power plays within museum collaboration projects. She states that community participation ‘can be understood as shaped by the individual’s position in relation to the other individuals present and, through them, with the institution’. [12] Therefore, it is also crucially important that their new partners are given complete power in their choices of what to exhibit and why, along with what they write about each event displayed. The museum must take a backseat and allow the community partners to control their exhibition. An education officer should be appointed only to assist with the fragments of reading and writing involved in the exhibition as most Indigenous community members have low level English and cannot read or write. The education officer will assist rather than dictate and will leave all decision making to the community members.

The placement of ‘Our Story’ in King’s Hall raises questions of political representation. The hall is named after King George V, King of the United Kingdom the British Dominions and Emperor of India. Many believe that the sovereign of the United Kingdom is detached from the Australian public and that the overseas monarchy is too far removed from the lives of everyday Australians. There is a large bronze statue of King George V dominating the hall along with royal paintings depicting the openings of parliament in 1927 and 1974. [13] The statue of King George V looking over ‘Our Story’ which documents the history of the Aboriginal community becoming part of the democratic society of Australia today, may stir up some unhappy responses from the Indigenous community. This is because it almost signifies a white European King looking down upon their attempts. With this in mind, King’s Hall will remain the location of ‘Our Story’ in order to instil a better sense of equality between the two communities and start a conversation about why the two should not be separated, but instead placed side by side. It will provoke the museum to re-think their pre-existing interpretation of the space and perhaps urge them to more sensitively install artworks among the walls. It may also be suggested that the museum commissions a bronze statue of Neville Bonner to reside in the hall, or alternatively, a re-naming of the hall to be more inclusive. This needs to be dealt with delicately, however it is the kind of discussion which should have a place in a museum such as this.

Hans Haake argues that every museum is ‘a political institution, no matter whether it is privately run or maintained and supervised by governmental agencies’. [14] The representation of the past is political itself and the museum therefore must consider the Indigenous community partners with whom they are working with, and potential visitors alike. There may be relatives or friends depicted in the AIATSIS archives and also possibly in the chosen images for use in the exhibition. There is also an ethical debate to be had around the public viewing of these images as some of the people captured within them may not have given consent for their image to be viewed by public. Furthermore, as the AIATSIS website states there may be views expressed in the imagery which is deemed unacceptable today, and is therefore only shown in a historical context, not as propaganda. [15] Therefore it is suggested that a disclaimer of sorts should accompany the images used throughout Our Australia to avoid any unexpected emotional upset.

Being political involves more than the discussion of matters, but also involves ‘the mechanisms by which they are resolved with’, who is involved in producing the resolutions ‘and the basis upon which they can be justified to local, national and international communities’, [16] therefore the exhibition allows the museum to become more politically aware. In addition to this, Atkinson states that it is the duty of the political museum ‘to represent all sections of society’ and ‘to challenge standard narratives of history’ [17] which is exactly what Our Australia aims to do.

Through the museological discourse, the ancestral relationship of museum held objects and events depicted in images from AIATSIS will be explored with the community partners. Tapsell states how ‘becoming more aware of underpinning source values (ethics/principles) that originally governed a particular object, item or thing, museums are more likely to curate exhibitions built on purposeful source community engagement’. [18] The exhibition is therefore hugely significant, and if operated under the discussed parameters, meets all ethical responsibilities outlined in the Museum Association’s Code of Ethics. [19] Through the proposed exhibition, the Museum of Australian Democracy will be more understanding of what they are exhibiting, more actively aware of the implications of it’s exhibitions and the exhibition will positively enhance it’s community engagement program.

Our Australia positively illuminates and problematises the interaction between politics and ethics in museum practice through openly provoking controversial discussions and attempting to work with the results in a respectful and educative manner in collaboration with community partners. Through providing and becoming a platform for reflection, the proposed exhibition will spur visitors to feel the presence of the Aboriginal people and will illuminate what life would have been like for the Aboriginal community in times gone by, and more specifically Neville Bonner, actively participating in the Australian Senate as the only Indigenous member of his time.

Two new dialogues will be opened up. The first between the museum and the Indigenous community partners discussing issues which may have previously been forbidden from discussion or exhibition. The second between the visitor and the museum where the visitor can learn about the issues discussed and the museum can begin to understand the positive and negative impacts of being wholly truthful and transparent with their audiences.

Through the use of shocking imagery and interactive interpretation chosen by new Indigenous community partners of the museum, visitors will be educated on the only recent changes in the democratic rights of the Australian Aboriginals and will be respectfully reminded that Australia once belonged to the Aboriginal people before it became home to white European settlers. The Museum of Democracy is a suitable choice for the exhibition because of the building’s history and the aims of the current museum occupying it. Overall, the exhibition aims to promote and support the Aboriginal community, whilst allowing the institution to learn from their partners. Our Australia provides and avenue to celebrate the cultural gain of the two societies co-existing side by side.

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[1] Museum of Australian Democracy, ‘Visiting Old Parliament House’ [accessed 12 January 2018]

[2] Museum of Australian Democracy, ‘Defining Democracy’ [accessed 12 January 2018]

[3] British Museum, ‘Project Overview’ [accessed 13 January 2018]

[4] Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, ‘Images from AIATSIS Collection projected for Enlighten’ [accessed 18 January 2018]

[5]  Museums Association, ‘Code of Ethics’ [accessed 20 December 2017]

[6]  Museum of Australian Democracy, ‘Reconciliation Action Plan’ [accessed 15 January 2018]

[7]  Australian Government Department of Communication and the Arts, ‘Old Parliament House 2017-2018’ [accessed 15 January 2018]

[8]  Australian Government Department of Finance, ‘Governance Structures in The Public Sector’ [accessed 15 January 2018]

[9]  Museum of Australian Democracy, ‘Support Us’ [accessed 12 January 2018]

[10]  Nina Simon, ‘Chapter 1: Principles of Participation’ [accessed 15 January 2018]

[11]  Paul Tapsell, p. 85

[12]  Bernadette T. Lynch, p.147

[13]  Marian Sawer, ‘The Museum of Australian Democracy’ [accessed 16 January 2018]

[14]  Hans Haacke, p. 118

[15]  Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, ‘Sensitivity’ [accessed 18 January 2018]

[16]  Clive Gray, p.1

[17]  Rebecca Atkinson, ‘The Myth of the Apolitical Museum’ [accessed 15 January 2018]

[18]  Paul Tapsell, p86

[19]  Museums Association, ‘Code of Ethics’ [accessed 20 December 2017]

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Australian Government Department of Communication and the Arts, ‘Old Parliament House 2017-2018’ (2018) <https://www.communications.gov.au/documents/old-parliament-house-2017-18> [accessed 15 January 2018]

Australian Government Department of Finance, ‘Governance Structures in The Public Sector’ (2017) <https://www.finance.gov.au/resource-management/governance/overview/> [accessed 15 January 2018]

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, ‘Images from AIATSIS Collection projected for Enlighten’, Blog (2017) <http://aiatsis.gov.au/news-and-events/blog/images-aiatsis-collection-projected-enlighten> [accessed 18 January 2018]

Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, ‘Sensitivity’, Home (2017) <http://aiatsis.gov.au/sensitivity> [accessed 18 January 2018]

Bernadette T. Lynch, ‘Collaboration, Contestation and Creative Conflict’, in The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics (2012) 146-163

British Museum, ‘Project Overview’, Object Journeys <https://objectjourneys.britishmuseum.org/about/project-overview/> [accessed 13 January 2018]

Clive Gray, ‘Museum and Politics: an Introduction’, The Politics of Museums 1st ed. (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p.1

Hans Haacke, Working Conditions: The Writings of Hans Haacke, ed. by Alexander Alberro (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016), p. 118

Marian Sawer, ‘The Museum of Australian Democracy’, recollections: Journal of the National Museum of Australia (2011) <http://recollections.nma.gov.au/issues/vol_6_no_1/exhibition_reviews/museum_of_australian_democracy> [accessed 16 January 2018]

Museums Association, ‘Code of Ethics’ <https://www.museumsassociation.org/download?id=1155827> [accessed 20 December 2017]

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Museum of Australian Democracy, ‘Defining Democracy’, The Museum of Australian Democracy <https://www.moadoph.gov.au/democracy/defining-democracy/> [accessed 12 January 2018]

Museum of Australian Democracy, ‘Reconciliation Action Plan’, The Museum of Australian Democracy <https://moad-web.s3.amazonaws.com/heracles-production/d07/4a9/538/d074a9538a38ee93fcc239947778698efcdad3a7f1b616987e111d47f2c4/reconciliation-action-plan.pdf> [accessed 15 January 2018]

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Paul Tapsell, ‘Aroha Mai: Whose Museum?’, The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics (2012) 85-111

Rebecca Atkinson, ‘The Myth of the Apolitical Museum’, Museums Journal: blog (2012) <https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/museums-journal-blog/17102012-political-museum-liverpool> [accessed 15 January 2018]