INSITE magazine is about the people and stories that together make up our diverse Victorian museum and gallery community. With interviews, articles, and industry news, it has been essential reading for all staff and volunteers in the sector.
INSITE Magazine
November - December 2019 / Decolonising Collections
This edition of INSITE is the last in a 37 year program of delivering news and articles about the sector in Victoria. The publication started out in 1981 as Museum News and was renamed INSITE in 1996.
The final issue of INSITE is on the theme Decolonising Collections with articles from: Kirsten Thorpe; Archivist and Senior Researcher, Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education & Research, UTS; Deanne Fitzgerald, Senior Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisor, WA Museum; and Ella Hughes, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre. These articles look at the ways that collections can respectfully reposition First Nations voices and perspectives in GLAM organisations and reframe our colonial stories. The issue’s cover image is a watercolour by artist Ryan Presley from his Blood Money series.
The edition includes a roundup of the Victorian Museums and Galleries Forum, Victorian Collections Day, the latest re-accreditations and a tribute to Martin Hallett by Forbes Hawkin’s, Museums Victoria.
Our cover image is by artist, Dr Ryan Presley, from the series Blood Money. The Blood Money series portrays leaders, social advocates, warriors and writers from Aboriginal history, such as Fanny Balbuk Yooreel, Dundalli and Pemulwuy. Ryan Presley’s artist’s statement about the series says, “A primary aim of the series is to broadcast and promote important Aboriginal people within the context of Australian history and experience, testifying to their intelligence, perseverance and maneuverability. Their actions and legacies are not only respectable in terms of their general achievements in Australian society, but they also dispel many of the myths circulated via colonial occupation: particularly that Aboriginal people were passive and lacked the will to resist colonial encroachment. Read the full artist statement here.
Find a full list of the contents for the issue here.
INSITE Back Issues
You can view a list of contents for INSITE editions from 2011-2019.
In this Issue
Speaking Back to Colonial Collections: building living Aboriginal archives
In this article Kirsten Thorpe, Archivist and Senior Researcher at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education & Research, University of Technology Sydney, discusses ways to reconnect colonial collections with Indigenous communities and respectfully reposition Aboriginal voice and perspectives into these historical collections and reframe our colonial stories. This essay was first published in Artlink, Indigenous Storytelling in Digital World, June, 2019.
Reflect and Innovate: the Western Australian Museum’s Reconciliation Action Plan
In this article Deanne Fitzgerald, Western Australian Museum, shares how the WA Museum’s Reconciliation Action Plans have been frameworks for implementing meaningful change that embed Indigenous values into museum and gallery practice.
Re-Visioning History at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre
Bundoora Homestead Art Centre is located in a Queen Anne style Federation mansion certified by the National Trust. In this article Ella Hughes, Director, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, takes us through how staff have developed a curatorial framework over the past five years, to support exhibitions and programs that acknowledge the sites colonial history.
AMaGA Victoria respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we work, the Woi Wurrung people and honour their Ancestors, Elders and next generations of community. AMaGA Victoria acknowledges and pays respect to the Elders of all the Nations of Victoria, past, present and emerging.