Contexts of Collection: a dialogic approach to understanding the making of the material record of Yolngu cultures

The project aims to discover the motivations of the makers of the material record of Yolngu society from the beginning of missionisation to the present, and those of the Yolngu themselves, in contributing to collections and taking part in filming. The project is radical in treating the material record (film, photography, and material culture) as a whole and in investigating the agency of the Indigenous people involved. The project will result in a number of publications and a web-based resource that will be of great utility to researchers and Yolngu alike and can provide a model for collections based research.