Barks, birds & billabongs [poster]

Exploring the legacy of the 1948 American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land, an international symposium, 16-20 November 2009, National Museum of Australia, Canberra. Poster image: montage image from two photographs (top) Charles P. Mountford & Groote Eylandt artists, 1948, photograph attributed to Howell Walker, courtesy of the State Library of South Australia; and (below) the Expedition posed at Gunbalanya (formerly Oenpelli), 1948, photograph by Howell Walker, courtesy of the National Geographic Society.

The American-Australian Scientific Expedition to Arnhem Land in 1948 was one of the last major explorations in Australia: not however geographical exploration but a detailed examination of the environment, its resources and its Aboriginal people. The expedition was especially significant in the history of science, anthropology and the visual arts in Australia with the Aboriginal people sharing their art and their knowledge of their land with scientists.

South Australian anthropologist and photographer Charles Mountford was the leader of the expedition, and the deputy leader was Frank M Setzler, from the Smithsonian Institution in the United States. The Australian Museum, Sydney and the National Geographic Society, Washington were major participants. A wide range of scientists and specialists accompanied the expedition.

There was an enormous body of material and information collected on the expedition: art, ceremonies and the traditional way of life of the Aboriginal peoples were recorded; the people themselves were poked, prodded and measured sometimes intrusively. Bones from burials were removed to institutions, but most have now been returned at the insistence of the Australian government.

The people of Arnhem Land are now reclaiming much of that documentation: this is a result that was not imagined or considered at the time the information was collected.

60 years later a syposium at the National Museum of Australia in November will re-examine the expedition's results. Participants both scientific and indigenous will gather to examine the legacy of the expedition.

The image of Mountford outside his tent with a number of Aboriginal artists is taken from the diary of his wife Bessie (PRG 487/1/2 page 205). Bessie accompanied him on the expedition to Arnhem Land acting as expedition secretary.

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