Engaging the Discipline

The discipline of anthropology has a legacy of documents, genealogies, photographs, and written accounts with which First Nations researchers and artists engage. Anthropology has created a massive record in the over 100 years of activities – some of these records are readily available while some are kept behind embargos and secrecy. These records represent the many faces of anthropology. From its early colonial associations to its more recent applied work, the anthropological record is a fascinating and also troubling arena in which First Nations peoples explore, connect and debate. This plenary explores these engagements through firsthand accounts of how the anthropological record has been examined and used. How are these records valued today? In what way are they used to create new understandings? In what ways are they used to challenge old misconceptions? This plenary explores the significant of the anthropological record and its continuing legacy among First Nations peoples.

Keynote speaker:

Michael Aird, (he/him), Director of the University of Queensland’s Anthropology Museum

Mr Aird is the Director of the UQ Anthropology Museum and ARC Research Fellow. He has worked in the area of Aboriginal arts and cultural heritage since 1985, maintaining an interest in documenting aspects of urban Aboriginal history and culture. He has curated over 30 exhibitions including; Portraits of Our Elders (1993) a Queensland Museum travelling exhibition, Transforming Tindale (2012) at the State Library of Queensland, Captured: Early Brisbane Photographers and Their Aboriginal Subjects (2014) at the Museum of Brisbane. In 1996 he established Keeaira Press as an independent publishing house, producing over 35 books.

Photography has been central to his career, both as a researcher of Aboriginal photographs and as a photographer. His work is held in numerous collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, the Queensland State Library, the Queensland Museum and the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art.

Panel speakers:

Savannah Martin, M.A. (she/her) Ph.D. Candidate at Washington University in St. Louis and Sapsik’wałá/UOTeach M.Ed. Candidate at the University of Oregon

Savannah Martin is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians of Oregon and a Ph.D. candidate in biological anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Her ongoing doctoral research focuses on health disparities in Native American communities and how cultural identity moderates the relationship between exposure to psychosocial stressors and the incidence of stress-related diseases. Through her work as an Indigenous anthropologist, Savannah aims to demonstrate the value of integrating Indigenous epistemologies and Western science research, and to improve relationships between anthropological and Indigenous communities.

Savannah is an M.Ed. candidate through UOTeach at the University of Oregon, where she is also scholar with the Sapsik’wałá Teacher Education program. The Sapsik’wałá program focuses on supporting the development of skilled Indigenous educators, enabling them to teach within their communities and thereby strengthening educational resources and supports for historically underserved Indigenous students. She will be pursuing her teaching license in high school biology and will be teaching in a Native-serving school following the successful completion of her program in June 2022.

Savannah is an avid proponent of equity, inclusion, and accessibility in science and academia, and her #scicomm endeavors can be followed on Twitter, @SavvyOlogy.

Robert ‘Tommy’ Pau, (he/him), arts instructor, Cairns TAFE

Tommy is a descendant of the people of the Eastern Torres Strait Islands, Australian Aboriginal, Papua New Guinea, Pacific Islander and Asia. He speaks Torres Strait Creole and Australian English. He was taught about the need to keep culture strong through cultural practice by his father, has a strong commitment to keeping old traditions alive, and believes that culture must remain true to the past and move with time to exist in the future. Tommy has considerable experience in the arts and his art forms of choice include printmaking, painting and sculpture.

He completed a Bachelor of Education and currently completing a BA in New Media at James Cook University, Cairns. He was a semi-finalist in the 2017 Telstra Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award and was the winner of the Works on Paper section of 2016 The Telstra Art Award. His works are in major public and private collections in Australia. He is passionate in representing Indigenous arts and artists in general and the protection and true representation of Torres Strait Islander arts and culture.

Julie Gough, (she/her), Curator, First People’s Art and Culture, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart

Julie Gough is a Trawlwoolway (Tasmanian Aboriginal) artist, writer and a curator of First People’s Art and Culture at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG). Her Briggs-Johnson-Gower-Vincent family have lived in the Latrobe region of North West Tasmania since the 1840s, with Tebrikunna in far north eastern Lutruwita (Tasmania) their Traditional Country. Gough’s art and research practice often involves uncovering and re-presenting conflicting and subsumed histories, many referring to her family's experiences as Tasmanian Aboriginal people. Since 1994 Julie has exhibited in more than 130 exhibitions including: TENSE PAST, solo survey exhibition, TMAG, 2019; Divided Worlds, Adelaide Biennial, 2018; Defying Empire, National Gallery of Australia (NGA), 2017; THE NATIONAL, MCA, Sydney, 2017; With Secrecy and Despatch, Campbelltown Arts Centre, 2016; UNDISCLOSED, NGA, 2012; Clemenger Award, National Gallery of Victoria, 2010; Biennial of Sydney, 2006; Liverpool Biennial, UK, 2001; Perspecta, AGNSW, 1995. Gough holds a PhD from the University of Tasmania (Visual Arts, 2001), a Masters degree (Visual Arts) University of London, Goldsmiths College (1998), Bachelor degrees in Visual Arts (Curtin University), Prehistory/English literature (UWA). In 2018, her monograph Fugitive History was published (UWA Press). Gough’s artwork is held in most Australian state and national gallery collections.