For Australian Indigenous Peoples, the continued practice and maintenance of their culture is an important means of expressing pride and achieving self-determination. Concurrent with this, Australian Indigenous cultures have become a leading signifier of Australian culture within the global environment, resulting in a strong commercial market for some Indigenous art and craft products. This also has unfortunately led to some instances of unethical and/or insensitive interactions. As a result of such instances, in recent years a number of protocol documents have been developed.
NAVA Resources:
Valuing Art, Respecting Culture: Protocols For Working With the Australian Indigenous Visual Arts and Craft Sector. This document sets out protocols both to guide non-Indigenous people in their relationships with Indigenous artists and communities, and assist Indigenous artists to define their rights.
Published by NAVA, written and researched by Doreen Mellor with a legal section by Terri Janke. Published 2001, 110 pages.
ISBN 0 9585 474 0 8.
This publication is no longer available in hard copy.
Read Valuing Art, Respecting Culture (complete document).
Read Valuing Art, Respecting Culture (executive summaries).
Other Resources:
Indigenous Australia Art Commercial Code of Conduct: This code was developed by the Australia Council for Arts. It is voluntary and applies to current Code signatories. The purpose of the Code is to regulate the conduct of participants in the Indigenous art industry and to ensure fair and ethical trade with artists, transparency with the promotion and sale of artwork and a fair and equitable dispute resolution system for disputes arising under this Code.
Indigenous Arts Protocols. A Guide, published by the NSW Ministry for the Arts, Indigenous Reference Group, November 2000. The guide provides advice to arts workers and organisations developing project proposals.
Cultures: Indigenous Protocols Guides. A set of 5 guides, published by the Australia Council. Visual Cultures was written by Terri Janke drawn from the NAVA Protocols publication work done with Doreen Mellor. Each guide can be downloaded from the Australia Council website.
Respecting Cultures, Working With the Tasmanian Aboriginal Community and Aboriginal Artists. An initiative of Arts Tasmania’s Aboriginal Advisory Committee.
