Professor Gaye Sculthorpe will spearhead a collaborative research initiative aimed at rediscovering Australian Indigenous artefacts that were sent overseas for the Great Exhibitions of the 19th and early 20th centuries. By engaging in community discussions and collaborative efforts, the project seeks to repatriate knowledge, reforge connections between the artefacts, museums, and Indigenous communities, and highlight contemporary Indigenous perspectives on a global stage.

• Create a comprehensive inventory by systematically investigating and cataloging all known Indigenous objects sent to international exhibitions between 1851 and 1937 for the first time. 
• Contextualising and analysing the collection, display and representation of Indigenous objects and people at the Great Exhibitions, highlighting the role of Indigenous people in these processes.
• Re-establishing connections between the objects and their knowledge-holders/stakeholders where possible, returning cultural knowledge to First Nations people.
• Advancing museological practices by exploring how objects with little origin can be managed, used and interpreted today, through dialogue with Indigenous people.
• Influencing policy and debate regarding the management and repatriation of objects in international museums collected during colonial eras.

This is an ARC Discovery Indigenous project that is funded by the Australian Research Council.