Touring Across Country
STANDARD: Recognise and acknowledge that every touring exhibition travels across First Nations Country, engages with living cultural systems, and carries responsibility toward the peoples, places, and knowledge that shape this nation’s creative life. Act accordingly with respect to First Nations people in terms of establishing genuine relationships, gaining appropriate permissions, paying fair remuneration, and ensuring ongoing respect for cultural authority at every stage of the tour.
Minimum Practice
The United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) establishes the minimum standards for the survival, dignity, and well-being of the Indigenous peoples of the world. These baseline standards should guide how organisations and individuals create and share touring exhibition content with First Nations peoples and on First Nations Country. Particularly Article 31, which affirms the rights of Indigenous Peoples in relation to control, protection and development of their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and manifestation of traditional cultural expressions.
Best Practice
Delivering best practice goes beyond compliance to UNDRIP, embedding First Nations leadership and authority into touring practices. Prioritising First Nations-led projects, sustaining meaningful relationships for community and cultural benefit, integrating Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) into every aspect of a touring exhibition, and recognising the diversity of First Peoples culture, and their cultural expression across Country, are best practice expectations.
Guidance
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been creating art and sustaining cultural practice across this continent and its islands for over 65,000 years. Every exhibition that tours in this country does so within that context across lands with living cultural, spiritual, and governance relationships that predate and extend well beyond any institutional framework.
Touring moves exhibitions between cities and venues, as well as across distinct First Nations, language groups, and Country areas. The Country an exhibition visits, and the Country connected to the peoples, stories, and objects it carries, is part of what the exhibition is. Thinking about this from the outset is what Standard 1 asks of tour organisers and host venues.
First Nations cultures are not a monoculture. Appropriate engagement in one place will look different from another, and no single protocol applies uniformly across a tour. The advice and recommendations within the Standards are therefore subject to the cultural protocols of the specific First Nations groups being engaged or represented, or whose Country is being toured upon. This requires ongoing attention across the life of a tour, not a one-time consultation at the planning stage.
The following guidance sets out what Standard 1 looks like in practice. It applies to tour organisers and host venues alike and should be read alongside the companion First Nations Engagement in Exhibition Touring document, which provides additional detail on each of the principles below.
Relationship before project
Good First Nations engagement starts before a project is fully formed. Reaching out to First Nations peoples and communities when the key decisions are already made is not meaningful consultation. Building relationships with First Nations peoples connected to your content, your venue, and the Country you will tour across should begin early, be maintained across the life of the tour, and not end when the exhibition closes.
Cultural authority and ICIP
First Nations peoples hold rights over their cultural heritage, knowledge, and creative expression including stories, images, designs, language, and objects. These rights are not extinguished by the passage of time or by organisational practice. If your exhibition includes First Nations cultural content of any kind, ICIP considerations must be investigated from the beginning. This means seeking appropriate permissions, confirming attribution, understanding any usage restrictions, and ensuring that the people who hold cultural authority over that content are part of the conversation.
The Creative Australia Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts are the primary reference for the sector and should be read by anyone working with First Nations content in a touring context.
Fair remuneration and reducing cultural load
Consultation, advice, and cultural knowledge are professional contributions. They should be remunerated at industry-standard rates, budgeted for from the outset, and never treated as a goodwill offering or an add-on.
Tour organisers and host venues should also be mindful of cultural load, being the disproportionate burden placed on First Nations individuals to educate, advise, and advocate across multiple projects and organisations.
Where existing First Nations-led resources, publications, and education programs can reduce that burden, use them.
Local determination
The appropriate form of First Nations engagement at each tour venue will depend on local context, local relationships, and the direction of local First Nations peoples and organisations. Host venues are in the best position to understand what is needed in their place. Tour organisers should support how that engagement happens. What a Welcome to Country looks like in one community, or what consultation is appropriate for a particular cultural object, may look entirely different elsewhere. Follow the lead of the people on Country.
Acknowledgement of Country and Welcome to Country
An Acknowledgement of Country should be included in all exhibition materials and at all public events. A Welcome to Country, performed by a Traditional Owner or Custodian with the cultural authority to do so, should be sought for exhibition openings wherever possible. Both should be genuine and specific to place, arranged in advance, and in the case of a Welcome to Country, appropriately remunerated.
When touring internationally, consider how the narratives of Country and First Nations practices embedded in your exhibition are expressed to international audiences ethically, with proper attribution, and with the consent of the relevant peoples.
Standards in Action
The following case studies and resources illustrate how Standard 1 can be enacted across different touring contexts. The resources listed are examples. Local First Nations organisations, land councils, and community groups in your region will often be the most relevant source of guidance for your specific project.
Standards In Action
M&G QLD – Billy Missi’n Wakain Thamai
[TO BE DESIGNED] Case Study written by M&G QLD on their experience of touring the exhibition Billy Missi’n Wakain Thamai. Considerations of Country and representing culture are discussed, alongside details on the resources created to support host venues and audiences explore this exhibition.
Artback NT – Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality
[TO BE DESIGNED] Case Study written by Artback NT on the collaborative storytelling of an historically important community event, and how this narrative was presented across seven states and territories.
Useful Resources & Further Reading
United Nations – Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
The international framework establishing minimum standards for the rights of Indigenous peoples worldwide, including the right to self-determination and the right to maintain, control, protect, and develop their cultural heritage and knowledge. Australia endorsed UNDRIP in 2009. The principles in UNDRIP underpin Standard 1 and the companion engagement guidance.
AIATSIS – Core Cultural Learning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia
A 10-module program designed by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) to encourage individuals to enhance their ability to nurture and facilitate respectful and appropriate cultural safety and understanding through self-reflection.
AIATSIS – Curriculum Resources
A suite of world leading curriculum resources collated by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) of teaching guides and learning materials.
Dr Terri Janke and company – True Tracks®:a pathway to Indigenous Engagement
True Tracks® is a professional development workshop designed to expand conceptions of and engagement with Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP), or Indigenous cultural heritage. This method has been designed by First Nations lawyer and businesswoman Dr Terri Janke.
Reconciliation Australia – Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs)
Reconciliation Australia guides organisations through the process of developing a RAP appropriate to their capacity and relationships to create actionable ways to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Reconciliation Australia – Demonstrating inclusive and respectful language
A guide produced by Reconciliation Australia on the appropriate language and terms to use when speaking about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, as well as where to seek guidance.
Creative Australia – Protocols for using First Nations cultural & intellectual property in the arts Written by Dr Terri Janke and Company, these guidelines encourage First Nations self-determination in the creation of new work by or collaborative projects involving First Nations peoples or culture.
Creative Australia – First Nations Arts & Culture Strategy 2023-2027
A document featuring the protocols and principles guiding Creative Australia’s engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts and cultural practice, including consultation structures and case studies.
AMaGA – First Peoples: A Roadmap for Enhancing Indigenous Engagement
A guidebook on strengthening engagement with First Nations peoples within the museums and galleries sector, outlining goals, actionable steps, and focus areas. This document was written by Dr Terri Janke and Company for the Australian Museums and Galleries Association (AMaGA).
AMaGA – First Peoples & Australian Museums and Galleries
A report on the engagement of Indigenous Australians in the museums and galleries sector written by Dr Terri Janke and Company for the Australian Museums and Galleries Association (AMaGA) in 2018.
NETS Victoria – A Guide for Venues: Engaging with First Nations Curators, Artists, & Audiences This guide is designed for venues working with NETS Victoria to host exhibitions, in particular exhibitions that include the work of First Nations artists. This is a resource guide for the venues to provide practical guidance on engagement with First Nations people and communities. This Guide was developed through consultation with Terri Janke and Company.
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