Matt Poll: Shaped by the Sea at the National Maritime Museum
2022 Global Encounters Network Seminar Series
Throughout 2022, we will host a monthly webinar series to connect the diverse network of scholars affiliated or linked to the project for a fruitful, ongoing discussion.
Topic: Shaped by the Sea at the National Maritime Museum
Australia’s National Maritime Museum plays an important role in shaping how global histories of the south are represented in Australasian museums. Indigenous collections representing marine and maritime knowledge offer an important counternarrative to land-based histories of place. In many ways, our seas, rivers, and waterways are a living presence that frames our understanding of, and relationship with, not only the environment but ourselves and our personal histories. Water has shaped the land, plants and animals, and sustained ways of life, belief, and culture for millennia. First Nations maritime history abounds with people who lived, worked, and explored our waters. The maritime museum brings a modern perspective to these narratives, exploring topics of migration, trade and commerce, maritime archaeology, ocean science, culture, and lifestyle. This presentation draws from examples from the museum’s upcoming exhibition ‘Shaped by the Sea’, which is the first stage in a major redevelopment of the museum’s permanent exhibitions that will unfold the story of maritime Australia from the formation of the continent and oceans to the present day.
Speaker: Matt Poll, Australian National Maritime Museum
Matt Poll is the newly appointed Manager of Indigenous Programs at the Australian National Maritime Museum. Prior to this appointment Matt was Curator of Indigenous Heritage collections at the University of Sydney, where his most recent projects include two new exhibitions at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, ‘Gululu dhuwala djalkiri: welcome to the Yolŋu foundations’ and ‘Ambassadors’, both of which opened in November 2020. Matt has also worked as a repatriation project officer at the University of Sydney for more than a decade. Matt’s international research collaborations include the 2014 Howard Mitchell Fellowship and a Curatorial Residency at the Musee du Quai Branley. In 2016 Matt was part of the Australia Council for the Arts First Nations Curatorial delegation to the United States, and consulted for the Helinä Rautavaaran Museo collections at the National Museum of Finland in 2018. Previously Matt has worked as Artistic Director of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative Gallery, and has published widely on south-east Australian Aboriginal art. Matt is also the chairperson of Orana Arts in mid-western regional NSW, and has been a long term member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Advisory Board for Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art.
Discussant: Dr Leonie Stevens, Monash University
Dr Leonie Stevens is a Research Fellow at Monash Indigenous Studies Centre working on the Global Encounters & First Nations Peoples program. Leonie had a previous career as a writer, with six novels and a range of short fiction published. A settler-descendent of multiple generations, the Culture Wars of the early 2000s ignited a passion for the kinds of true stories not taught in school. She studied history and archaeology, and her PhD focused on the activism of Tasmanian First Nations Peoples during their exile on Flinders Island in the 1830s and 40s. She researches and writes on Indigenous and Australian history.
Host: Professor Lynette Russell AM, Monash University
Professor Lynette Russell AM is one of Australia’s leading historians and an internationally recognised expert on Indigenous histories. She has published over twelve books on topics as diverse as museums and museum displays, Aboriginal faunal knowledge, colonial history, and the early Australian whaling industry. She has held fellowships at both Cambridge and Oxford.
Her research focus is on developing an anthropological approach to the story of the past, challenging not only what we know but how we know it. Her work is frequently collaborative and interdisciplinary. She is deputy director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence in Biodiversity and Heritage, and leader of the ARC Laureate project Global Encounters & First Nations Peoples: 1000 Years of Australian History.
Time: Thursday 19 May 2022, 6:00pm - 7:00pm AEST
Register here.
For enquiries please contact david.haworth@monash.edu
Event Details
- Date:
- 19 May 2022 at 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
- Categories:
- Monash Indigenous Studies Centre (MISC); Global Encounters & First Nations People
Description
2022 Global Encounters Network Seminar Series
Throughout 2022, we will host a monthly webinar series to connect the diverse network of scholars affiliated or linked to the project for a fruitful, ongoing discussion.
Topic: Shaped by the Sea at the National Maritime Museum
Australia’s National Maritime Museum plays an important role in shaping how global histories of the south are represented in Australasian museums. Indigenous collections representing marine and maritime knowledge offer an important counternarrative to land-based histories of place. In many ways, our seas, rivers, and waterways are a living presence that frames our understanding of, and relationship with, not only the environment but ourselves and our personal histories. Water has shaped the land, plants and animals, and sustained ways of life, belief, and culture for millennia. First Nations maritime history abounds with people who lived, worked, and explored our waters. The maritime museum brings a modern perspective to these narratives, exploring topics of migration, trade and commerce, maritime archaeology, ocean science, culture, and lifestyle. This presentation draws from examples from the museum’s upcoming exhibition ‘Shaped by the Sea’, which is the first stage in a major redevelopment of the museum’s permanent exhibitions that will unfold the story of maritime Australia from the formation of the continent and oceans to the present day.
Speaker: Matt Poll, Australian National Maritime Museum
Matt Poll is the newly appointed Manager of Indigenous Programs at the Australian National Maritime Museum. Prior to this appointment Matt was Curator of Indigenous Heritage collections at the University of Sydney, where his most recent projects include two new exhibitions at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, ‘Gululu dhuwala djalkiri: welcome to the Yolŋu foundations’ and ‘Ambassadors’, both of which opened in November 2020. Matt has also worked as a repatriation project officer at the University of Sydney for more than a decade. Matt’s international research collaborations include the 2014 Howard Mitchell Fellowship and a Curatorial Residency at the Musee du Quai Branley. In 2016 Matt was part of the Australia Council for the Arts First Nations Curatorial delegation to the United States, and consulted for the Helinä Rautavaaran Museo collections at the National Museum of Finland in 2018. Previously Matt has worked as Artistic Director of Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative Gallery, and has published widely on south-east Australian Aboriginal art. Matt is also the chairperson of Orana Arts in mid-western regional NSW, and has been a long term member of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Advisory Board for Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art.
Discussant: Dr Leonie Stevens, Monash University
Dr Leonie Stevens is a Research Fellow at Monash Indigenous Studies Centre working on the Global Encounters & First Nations Peoples program. Leonie had a previous career as a writer, with six novels and a range of short fiction published. A settler-descendent of multiple generations, the Culture Wars of the early 2000s ignited a passion for the kinds of true stories not taught in school. She studied history and archaeology, and her PhD focused on the activism of Tasmanian First Nations Peoples during their exile on Flinders Island in the 1830s and 40s. She researches and writes on Indigenous and Australian history.
Host: Professor Lynette Russell AM, Monash University
Professor Lynette Russell AM is one of Australia’s leading historians and an internationally recognised expert on Indigenous histories. She has published over twelve books on topics as diverse as museums and museum displays, Aboriginal faunal knowledge, colonial history, and the early Australian whaling industry. She has held fellowships at both Cambridge and Oxford.
Her research focus is on developing an anthropological approach to the story of the past, challenging not only what we know but how we know it. Her work is frequently collaborative and interdisciplinary. She is deputy director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence in Biodiversity and Heritage, and leader of the ARC Laureate project Global Encounters & First Nations Peoples: 1000 Years of Australian History.
Time: Thursday 19 May 2022, 6:00pm - 7:00pm AEST
Register here.
For enquiries please contact david.haworth@monash.edu