Kluge-Ruhe: A Safe Keeping Place: Shifting Museum Spaces and Embedded Aboriginal Cultural Protocols

On April 25th, 2008, Kimberly Christen, Assistant Professor in Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University, gave a lecture entitled A Safe Keeping Place: Shifting Museum Spaces and Embedded Aboriginal Cultural Protocols. She discussed her work in developing cultural protocols to protect sacred and sensitive information while creating a community digital archive in collaboration with the Warumungu community in Tennant Creek, Northern Territories. The archive, called Mukurtu, contains thousands of photographs, recordings and other historical documents from this community in central Australia. Much of the material was supplied by missionaries, museums and even local cattle stations. A demonstration of the Mukurta archive can be seen online at www.mukurtuarchive.org . You can also visit Christen’s blog, Long Road, at www.kimberlychristen.com