IASA 2022 Annual Conference

The NFSA has developed an unique Indigenous Traditional Owner-led model to digitally preserve the film and audio from the Strehlow Collection, one of the most important ethnographic collections relating to Indigenous ceremonial life found anywhere in the world.  Most of this material relates to 'men's-only' sacred and secret ceremonies so core to this project was the development of a set of Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property protocols to ensure the strict handling and safety of the material. The Strehlow Collection is based around the field work of Professor TGH Strehlow, who spent more than four decades recording the ceremonial customs and traditions of Central Australian Aboriginal Communities from 1932 through to the mid-1970. The collection consists of over 400 reels of 16mm film and audio recordings including over 1000 reels of magnetic tape and wire recordings representing over 800 ceremonial acts and 150 hours of audio recordings of stories and songs. The digital preservation of this collection is vital for the continued cultural maintenance of Central Australian Aboriginal communities and the revitalisation of cultural practices and traditional language. A key component of this project was to build a digital archive and studio in Alice Springs at the Strehlow Research Centre to provide its Indigenous Traditional Owners with unprecedented access to these unique recordings of their cultural heritage on country and ensure it is preserved for future generations.