Ext Led IN24: The Great Exhibitions and Their Lost Aboriginal Objects

This project will re-discover Australian Indigenous objects sent overseas to international exhibitions in thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries which constituted vital forms of cultural, political and economic diplomacyand imperial communication and projection. Using rich archival, textual and photographic sources, it willinvestigate the Indigenous makers, collectors and representations of Aboriginal people at such exhibitions. Byidentifying objects still in collections and those sent but now lost, the project will repatriate knowledge and remakeconnections between objects and communities, generating new narratives and exhibition possibilities, bringingcontemporary Indigenous messages to museums and a global audience.