GAB TITUI CULTURAL CENTRE

THE LONG AND WINDING PATH: FROM PLACES TO PEOPLE – THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GROWING LOCALLY

Traditionally museums have been a foreign concept to indigenous cultures. Recently, however, there have been many initiatives and exhibitions that have proactively engaged indigenous peoples to become involved in content development, research documentation and performance. Although this level of engagement is important for museums and their collections, equally important is the training and recruitment of indigenous peoples within those institutions. This essay will outline the significance of employing and nurturing locally skilled personnel to care for their own cultural objects.

The maintenance of indigenous culture can be achieved through art, craft, song, dance and ceremony, which form an integral part of what is termed ‘intangible cultural heritage’. UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage defines such heritage as: ‘The practices, representations, and expressions… associated knowledge and… necessary skills, that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage’ (UNESCO 2003). UNESCO recognises that this can also be defined as ‘living cultural heritage’, in the forms of oral traditions, expressions and language; the performing arts; social practices, rituals, and festive events; knowledge and practices about nature and the universe; and traditional craftsmanship. It is imperative that while ‘living culture’ is recognised as an essential part of the maintenance of ‘intangible cultural heritage’, the investment to skill local indigenous people is equally significant for the survival of cultural heritage. In this essay, I examine some initiatives and exhibitions that have empowered and skilled local Indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands.

The Torres Strait Islands are a group of islands situated between the tip of Cape York Peninsula in Northern Queensland and south-west Papua New Guinea in the Torres Strait, which was named after the Spanish explorer Luis de Torres in 1606. The Torres Strait became part of Australia with annexation at the turn of the twentieth century, and today there are approximately 8000 people living in the Torres Strait, 75 per cent of whom are Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal people (Torres Strait Regional Authority 2003, 22). The origins of Torres Strait Islanders stretch to the north of Papua New Guinea, west to the Pacific Islands, and south to Cape York Peninsula.

There are now 18 inhabited island communities throughout the Torres Strait region (Torres Strait Regional Authority 2003, 22). The islands are divided into five regional groups: Top Western (Saibai, Boigu, Dauan); Western (Mabuiag, Badu, St Paul’s Community, Kubin Community); Central (Yam, Coconut, Yorke and Sue); Eastern (Murray, Darnley and Stephen); and Inner Islands (Hammond, Thursday, Horn and Prince of Wales). Although Torres Strait Islanders are distinctly different from Australian Aboriginal people, the diversity among Islanders is also unique because of their different languages and cultural beliefs.

The long and winding path to fostering locally skilled people of the Torres Strait occurred in various phases. The first phase included establishing the much-anticipated Past Time exhibition, which showcased a selection of objects from the Alfred Haddon Collection at the National Museum of Australia (NMA). The second phase was to develop a replacement exhibition for Past Time, and this was Paipa. And the third phase involved establishing the first cultural centre in the Torres Strait, Gab Titui, with our own Indigenous trained personnel. This is my story of how this long and winding path evolved and culminated into finally achieving the vision to empower, develop and nurture our own people, who will one day become the next generation of custodians of our very survival in cultural heritage and preservation.

PHASE ONE: PAST TIME

In 1999 I was employed by the NMA as the curator of the Torres Strait Islander Program, and was tasked with the delivery of a Torres Strait Islander exhibition from the nineteenth-century Alfred Haddon material housed at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (CUMAA). The first stage in the exhibition delivery involved community consultations with Torres Strait Islanders. At that time, the NMA had in place a Torres Strait Islander reference group with representatives from throughout Australia. The reference group nominated a small delegation to travel to Cambridge and select appropriate objects to display at the new NMA’s opening in Canberra as part of the Australian Government’s centenary celebrations for 2001 (National Museum of Australia 2002, ii). My role was to escort the delegation – which included Ephraim Bani, Flo Kennedy, Fr Dave Passi, Goby Noah and Francis Tapim – to Cambridge to select the objects and develop the content for the exhibition. The Australia Council’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board provided the museum with financial assistance to enable the visit.

Figure 12.1 Studying the Alfred Haddon photographic collection at the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

© Leilani Bin-Juda

Much preparation work had been carried out by the previous curator of the Torres Strait Islander Program, Mary Bani, who was successful in obtaining an Australian Winston Churchill Fellowship in 1998. This fellowship enabled Ms Bani to conduct an audit of Torres Strait Islander artefacts throughout Europe. Ongoing liaison and support was provided through the NMA’s reference group; the Cambridge curator Anita Herle, who has a long affiliation with the Torres Strait; and Jude Philp, an Australian student undertaking studies at CUMAA, who upon return to Australia wrote the Past Time exhibition catalogue (Philp 2001) and was then employed at the Australian Museum. These networks were the building blocks for the much anticipated exhibition content for the NMA.

The timing of the visit to Cambridge was planned to coincide with CUMAA’s exhibition commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the Haddon material. Entitled Torres Strait Islands: An Exhibition to Mark the Centenary of the 1898 Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Strait, the exhibition opened on 1 July 1998 (Herle and Philp 1998, 5). The significance of selecting Haddon material for display was monumental for the NMA and the Torres Strait, because it would be the first time in over 100 years that some of this cultural material would be brought back to Australia. During the delegation’s discussions I was privileged to listen to the elders talk about the most researched Torres Strait Islander cultural material collection and its importance. My background had previously been working in project management and human resources; therefore, the opportunity to gain knowledge from the group on the significance of cultural heritage for us as Islanders was an intense learning curve. The mere fact that we were right among the material steeped in history had an immense impact on each of us. During this moment of consultation and discussion, a question occurred to me: why were there not many young Torres Strait Islanders involved in the preservation and maintenance of our history, either employed in, or having an interest to work in, cultural institutions?

In 2000 there was only a handful of Torres Strait Islanders working within museums and galleries throughout Australia. This was identified as a critical element in our survival, as well as continued efforts to ensure our cultural material would one day return to the Torres Strait and be appropriately cared for by our own skilled people. This was a pivotal turning point for me in recognising the skill shortage, and I made a personal pledge to train more young Torres Strait Islander people in the heritage field, thus beginning the long and winding path to achieve this task. Even so, there was much work to be done before this could be implemented.

The 70 objects selected from the Haddon material were displayed as the Past Time exhibition in 2001 in the Torres Strait Islander Gallery of the NMA for 12 months. The exhibition then toured to the Cairns Regional Gallery for a further six months before returning back to Cambridge.

Part of the plan to resolve the skills shortage involved using my Peter Mitchell Churchill Fellowship, from the Australian Winston Churchill Fellowship, to identify strategies that encouraged indigenous youth to actively participate in cultural heritage and learning, particularly within museums in New Zealand, Canada, the United States of America and Hawaii. This was then paralleled with similar circumstances to the Torres Strait. I conducted the research in 2000 and 2001, produced and submitted a report to the NMA, and subsequently provided a presentation at the Museums Australia Conference 2002 in Adelaide. Although the exhibitions took precedence at the NMA, due to the enormity of the 2001 opening, the written report provided a foundation that would later be executed. In particular, the Canadian Museum of Civilization’s Indigenous Curator Program later inspired my thinking in developing a similar program for the Torres Strait.

PHASE TWO: PAIPA

The second phase was to establish a replacement exhibition for Past Time at the NMA. I immediately started developing Paipa (Torres Strait Islander Western language, Kala Lagaw Ya, meaning ‘windward’), which opened in 2002. The population of Islanders on the mainland is 42,400, compared with 8000 in the Torres Strait (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001). With this in mind, Paipa explored the different waves of migration from the Torres Strait to mainland Australia. Paipa built on the contemporary living culture of Islanders from mainland Australia with a clear connection to the Torres Straits. It explored the flow of migration from the nineteenth century to the present through five major themes: the introduction of Christianity; the pearling and fishing industry; the cane cutting industry; World War II; and young people’s responses to the changing environment. Islander communities from Broome, Townsville, Mackay, Cairns and Thursday Island were involved in the exhibition’s development, and their stories were interwoven throughout.

The Paipa exhibition gave me the widest opportunity to connect with Torres Strait Islander communities throughout Australia. This reinforced my vision to ensure that the skills shortage of our own young people working in the heritage sector needed to be filled. While Paipa was being developed, the Torres Strait Regional Authority (TSRA) had been undertaking discussions to build a central keeping place for cultural material in the Torres Strait. Once Paipa had opened, I relocated to the Torres Strait to begin work as an arts development officer for TSRA in August 2002. Part of the work involved establishing the first Torres Strait Islander cultural centre, Gab Titui, on Thursday Island, as well as fostering and nurturing the arts development of the Torres Strait.

PHASE THREE: GAB TITUI

The most significant task in establishing the cultural centre was the recruitment and selection of local Torres Strait Islanders.1 This involved extensive groundwork in fostering good working relationships with a multitude of stakeholders within the employment and heritage sectors. It was within this context that the long and winding path slowly began to evolve and become formalised.

In providing personnel for the cultural centre, I needed to recruit, select and appoint three Indigenous trainees in partnership with TRAWQ Community Council (a local Indigenous council), Thursday Island TAFE, Queensland Apprentice Scheme and ITEC Employment Services. I set up the traineeships and the course development with the TAFE to ensure that the Indigenous trainees would complete a formal qualification (Certificate III in Tourism, Visitor Services) to complement the work at the cultural centre. As part of the trainees’ on-the-job training, I utilised my networks with the Australian Museum and facilitated a joint internship whereby all three trainees spent time at the museum investigating their collections and their conservation and public programs.2

In addition, as the key driver and overall manager in creating the cultural centre, I established the first Indigenous mentoree position at the centre through the successful financial assistance of the Australia Council for the Arts. I facilitated the funding submission, and identified the need for the position in creating employment opportunities for Indigenous people of the region, as well as an opportunity to mentor a local Torres Strait Islander person. The rationale behind setting up the mentorship was to ensure that local skills and knowledge would be developed and people would be trained to participate within the cultural heritage industry.

At the conclusion of 2004, the three trainees graduated with the Certificate III. It was an exciting day to see, finally, one’s vision being achieved. One of the trainees has since gained employment with the National Gallery of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander section.3 This was a great achievement to see how the skill-development and empowerment of a young Torres Strait Islander person who was nurtured locally had enabled their engagement by a national cultural institution. The cultural centre won the Queensland Tourism Award in 2005 under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander category, and was recently highly commended in the National Tourism Awards under the same category.4

CONTINUED EFFORTS

In my position at TSRA, I continued to foster a good working relationship with Cambridge University. I was awarded a travel study grant from a philanthropic organisation based in the USA in August 2004, and had the opportunity to visit CUMAA (and other museums in Hawaii, Canada, USA and Japan). The visit enabled me to select historical photographs from Haddon’s photographic collection, which were displayed at the Gab Titui Cultural Centre’s first birthday celebrations in April 2005. Ongoing liaison continues with the long-term view that once a facility is built in the Torres Strait to appropriately house the objects, then cultural material could be returned. This type of negotiation for the return of cultural material requires sensitivity, particularly the ability to negotiate with CUMAA both as a cultural and academic institution.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the main point throughout the history of the long and winding path to empowering locally skilled Indigenous people is that young people matter, and giving them the opportunity to develop, nurture and mentor at a local level is crucial for our survival in the heritage sector. It is not just about the infrastructure, artefacts, exhibitions and programs, but more importantly, about ensuring that we have our own skilled people and can create a culture of continuous learning for our own sustainability. For me, the long path began from a seed in Cambridge where I, as a young person, had identified the need to overcome the skills shortage, and thus grew the idea to implement the vision that finally became a reality in 2005.

ENDNOTES

1     ‘Introducing the Gab Titui Team’. TSRA News, no. 56, Apr–Jun 2004: 5.

2     ‘Trainees gain unique insight into national museums’. TSRA News, no. 61, Feb–Mar 2005: 2.

3     ‘Simona off to Canberra’. Torres News, 18–24 January 2006: 2.

4     ‘Torres Strait’s Gab Titui Cultural Centre Wins Queensland Tourism Award’. TSRA News, no. 70, Dec 2005–Jan 2006: 1; and ‘National tourism body acknowledges Torres Strait’s Gab Titui Cultural Centre’. TSRA News, no. 72, March 2006: 2.

REFERENCES

Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2001. ‘Population characteristics of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: 2001 Census’. [Internet]. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Accessed 12 July 2006. Available from: http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/ 4B01828AAE8653CDCA256DCE007F78E2?Open.

Herle, Anita; Philp, Jude. 1998. Torres Strait Islanders – An exhibition marking the centenary of the 1898 Cambridge Anthropological Expedition. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Herle, Anita; Rouse, Sandra, eds. 1998. Cambridge and the Torres Strait: Centenary essays on the 1898 anthropological expedition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

National Museum of Australia. 2002. Annual report, 2001–2002. Canberra: National Museum of Australia.

Philp, Jude. 2001. Past time: Torres Strait Islander material from the Haddon Collection, 1888–1905: A National Museum of Australia exhibition from the University of Cambridge. Canberra: National Museum of Australia.

Torres Strait Regional Authority. 2003. Annual report, 2003–2004. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.

United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. 2003. ‘Convention for the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage’. [Internet]. Accessed 11 September 2005. Available from: http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ ID=16429&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_ SECTION=201.html.

 

Cite this chapter as: Bin-Juda, Leilani. 2006. ‘Gab Titui Cultural Centre’. South Pacific Museums, edited by Healy, Chris; Witcomb, Andrea. Monash University ePress: Melbourne. pp. 12.1–12.6.

© Copyright 2006 Leilani Bin-Juda
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