Selling Yarns

Australian Indigenous textiles and good business in the 21st century

 

Papers

Patterns of practice - Indigenous fibre art and museums

Session: Museum 1:30 - 3:15 pm, Sunday, 13 August 2006

Lindy Allen

Senior Curator, Indigenous Cultures Department, Museum Victoria

Abstract

Full paper published on the Craft Australia Research Centre

The role that museums can play in the promotion and development of Indigenous fibre practice goes largely unnoticed, yet it can be substantial. Not only are we buyers in a market that is in itself somewhat invisible, especially in metropolitan and rural Aboriginal Australia, our galleries, exhibitions and publications celebrate the vitality that is contemporary Aboriginal fibre practice.

As museum curators, in stark contrast to our equivalents in the state art galleries, our interests do not have to be driven by aesthetics. The importance of this genre as a cultural practice, notwithstanding it being at the same time a commercial one, is paramount. The irony often is that potential for producing the 'high-end' work is limited by a lack of a marketplace and respect for the craft. The latter is where the museum comes in because it operates in an environment that seeks to educate the public. Thousands of people visit Museum Victoria every day of the year and my job is to develop products that create awareness and understanding of Aboriginal people - women and fibre being my preferred themes.

Museums have the capacity to assist fibre artists to become well-known. Our primary aim is to build collections and tell stories about those objects. Fibre work is collected as part of the ongoing body of knowledge, skill and artistry that is central to the cultural fabric of contemporary Australia. It serves as testimony to the survival, continuation and a creative capacity unmatched in many parts of the world today. Patterns of practice will discuss the role that Museum Victoria has played in promoting Aboriginal fibre work and artists; and explore the interconnectedness of the historic fibre works with contemporary practice.

See also: Lindy Allen's biography