Panel Conversation: Indigenous Australian Cultural Repatriation

Join us for an evening program to learn about the research and community consultation that led to the return of culturally significant objects to Australia’s Warumungu community. The return was initiated by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), an independent Australian Government statutory authority that supports and facilitates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural resurgence. AIATSIS representatives Shaun Angeles and Jason Lyons and Warumungu Elders William (Bill) Ah Kit and Cliff Plummer Jabarula will discuss Warumungu history, community, repatriation, and cultural heritage.
The objects that will be returned to the Warumungu's Nyinkka Nyunyu Art & Culture Centre and will be cared for in accordance with the traditions and customs of the Warumungu peoples include clubs, knives and sheaths, an axe blade, a boomerang, and an adze. Half of the objects arrived in the Fowler’s collection via the Wellcome Trust. Sir Henry Wellcome was a pharmaceutical entrepreneur and artifact collector. After Wellcome’s death in 1936, the Wellcome Trust dispersed his collection. The British Museum received the largest gift while the Fowler Museum received 30,000 objects in 1965. The remaining objects were gifts from private collectors.
Light refreshments will be provided.

Image: Courtesy of AIATSIS

Host or Publisher Fowler Museum at UCLA