ARC Fellow, Centre for Cross Cultural Research, The Australian National University
Louise Hamby is an ARC Postdoctoral Fellow - Industry working with Museum Victoria on the project Anthropological and Aboriginal perspectives on the Donald Thomson Collection: material culture, collecting and identity. Hamby took up this position at the Centre for Cross Cultural Research, The Australian National University in 2003. From 2001 she was a Visiting Fellow. Hamby received her PhD in Anthropology from The Australian National University in 2001. She also holds a Master of Fine Arts in fabric design from the University of Georgia. Hamby has given many lectures in Australia and overseas on Aboriginal fibre topics.
Louise Hamby's PhD, Containers of power was an ethnographic study of fibre container forms from northeastern Arnhem Land. It investigated a complex set of relationships between the forms, mainly baskets, bags and mats, their makers and users, their functions, their morphology, their manufacture and history. The theoretical approach taken was one in which objects, the fibre ones, have cultural biographies.
Hamby has a strong interest in historic and contemporary material culture from Arnhem Land. 1994 was the start of her curatorial practice with the exhibition and catalogue Fibre art from Elcho Island. Her involvement with eastern Arnhem Land women continued with the development of the exhibition that she co-curated with Diana Young, Art on a String: Threaded objects from the Central Desert and Arnhem Land . A focus on western Arnhem Land fibre working with Injalak Arts and Crafts resulted in the exhibition and book called Twined Together: Kunmadj Njalehnjaleken. Her most recent involvement in curation, research and writing is in the exhibition and catalogue Woven forms: Contemporary basket making in Australia.
See also: Abstract of Louise Hamby's paper:
Buying with insight: the value of research
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