Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) celebrates the 2019 National NAIDOC Week, with the third instalment of its ground-breaking writing project, First languages of the Monash University Collection.
First languages of the Monash University Collection commissions new texts by Indigenous curators, artists and writers including in their first and/or ancestral languages. In doing so, it recognises that Indigenous languages play a profound role in understanding and transmitting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, law, art, philosophy, astronomy, biology, food, spirituality, history and much more.
2019 is the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages and it aims to raise awareness of the crucial role languages play in all people’s lives.
‘Today, of the 250 languages embedded in Country only 20 are not highly endangered or, in many cases, “asleep”. This situation has warranted action in all parts of the country to retrieve, reclaim, repair and strategise ways to reinforce use of our languages’, says Belinda Briggs, Curator, First languages of the Monash University Collection, 2017–18.
The guest curators have included: Léuli Eshrāghi (Indigenous Sāmoan and Persian Australian), artist, curator, writer (2016–17); Belinda Briggs (Yorta Yorta, Wamba Wamba), Community Engagement Officer – Indigenous, with the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) and active member of the Yorta Yorta language revival program (2017–18); and Zoe Rimmer (Pakana), Senior Curator of Indigenous Cultures, with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (2018–19).
Each curator, in consultation with MUMA, selects a number of artworks from the Monash University Collection and invites Indigenous writers to produce new texts in either or both language and English
For the final iteration of the program, audio recordings will be created of the written texts.
One of the most public and prominent artworks included in the First Languages project is Megan Cope’s 2018–19 Weelam Ngalut (Our Place). This site-specific installation (in progress) at the Monash University Clayton Campus features words and phrases in language shared with the artist by Indigenous staff, students and colleagues at Monash.
Charlotte Day, Director, MUMA notes: ‘Weelam Ngalut is located close to where most students arrive on campus and signposts that we are coming onto Country. It is intended that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures be very visible and purposely integrated into the landscape and built environment of our campuses, to acknowledge Indigenous ways of knowing and the wisdom of our First Nations people and to pay respect to the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet, teach and learn.
A full list of texts and artworks can be found in the attached release.
The First languages of the Monash University Collection is a three-year program, assisted by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.
Charlotte Day, Director, Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) and associated artists, writers and curators are available for interview.
Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Ground Floor, Building F, Monash University, Caulfield Campus, 900 Dandenong Road, Caulfield East. monash.edu/muma/
