Karlee Baker: 

How did you learn to read? Do you remember? Welcome to Learn with the Curators of Wangka Wakanutja, the story of the Literature Production Center. My name is Karlee. I'm the Assistant Director of Lifelong Learning. We acknowledge the Opalgate Foundation for their tremendous support of the Library's Lifelong Learning Initiative. I'm really excited to learn more about this incredible collection and how our exhibition was developed. With me is Rebecca Bateman, Director of Indigenous Engagement. How are you going Bec?  

Rebecca Bateman: 

Good. Yama everyone. It's great to be here today, and I'm also really excited to be able to have this chat and talk about how this amazing and really important piece of work came together to to have the exhibition that we that we see now. And I would like to start, of course, by acknowledging that we're talking to you from Ngunnawal Country in Canberra. I pay my respects to the Ngunnawal people, their elders, past and present, and through them to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. As I always do, I also like to extend that acknowledgment to all of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples whose stories and histories, knowledges and cultures are documented in the collections here at the National Library, and to pay my respects to them and their elders also. 

Karlee Baker: 

Thank you Bec. Now, in today's webinar, we have people from all over, all over Australia. It's wonderful to have you all here. I know that we have a lot of people from the gallery, library, archives and museum [GLAM] sector, but we also have people today who bring their own expertise and curiosities. And I'd like you to start by thinking about a line of inquiry around perhaps the Papunya readers themselves or the exhibition. What are you hoping to learn more? What are you hoping to discover a little more about in this session? 

We were lucky enough to sit down with members of the curatorium who came to Canberra to launch the exhibition. So you will hear from six of the seven members of the curator. You'll hear from Karen [McDonald] and Priscilla [Brown], Kulata [Dennis Nelson] and Roslyn [Dixon]. You'll also hear from Samantha Disbray and Vivien Johnson. Unfortunately, Charlotte Phillipus was unable to join us. We hope that you will enjoy hearing their stories, but also that you'll learn from the reflections and the history of the collection that they bring to us. 

Karen McDonald: 

In this book we published our Wangka Wakanutja. And this is from the eighties that the Literacy Production Centre at Papunya was there, and all the resources like books, all that was there with us for the kids to share. But now we're going to leave it behind so the world can see it! How we was before when we was doing the languages at Papunya School. The people was there for us, the old people to share that knowledge of the culture for the future. But in my opinion, it still like moving on. I can hear it. I can feel it. The Ancestors, you know? Like we was there with them, dancing, corroborees. Boys and girls, elders. It's all in the cultural background and the resources for the kids to learn. Like writing, reading. Like me. I was reading when I was at school, and now I read and write in language. Sometimes I translate books from the English to Luritja. 

The memories about our old people, still echoing! They are, we can't go out, without nothing. Old people from the past we can share it to the future. And we’re gonna leave here, as it is, so the world can come and see. And they are welcome to come! 

Karlee Baker: 

We will play a few clips from various members of the curatorium and also our senior curator, Allister. But Bec, let's start with you and your involvement in this really, really huge project.  

Rebecca Bateman: 

Yeah. So this is a project that has happened in stages over quite a number of years here. In fact, you can trace the involvement of the National Library with the Papunya Literature Center and these readers as far back as the 1970s, when the very earliest of the readers were, you know, being produced and they were coming to the Library, some of them through the Legal Deposit scheme. 

So we had a small but obviously very important collection of these readers here in the collection in 2017. Fast forward just a little bit, the Papunya community, along with Vivien Johnson and Samantha Disbray, who you'll hear from later, they applied for a community heritage grant through the National Library, and that enabled them to, you'll hear the amazing story later about the sort of unlocking and discovering of the rediscovery of these works, but that grant really enabled them to be able to start looking at how they were going to care for and store document these records. 

And it was at that point, obviously, that the library became involved in a very direct way. At that point, members of Library staff went out to Papunya to provide advice alongside the Community Heritage Grant, and at that point brought back copies of the material that we didn't already have, and that at that point, our collection of the readers that we hold in the National Library became the most comprehensive collection outside of Punya itself, which was pretty extraordinary. 

And then a year or so after that, Professor Vivien Johnson came to the Library to do a fellowship. She knew that we had all of these works here at the Library, but she also knew that there was some work to be done in the way they were described in the catalogue, in properly attributing the individual authors and illustrators of the works. 

And she had the knowledge and the decades-long involvement with the community to be able to provide us with the information to enrich those records in a way that would make them discoverable and meaningful. I really got to know Vivien at that point, and she really brought me into the world Papunya then. And I kind of started to get, you know, excited about all this at this point. 

And I remember even back in those early days, in about 2018, 2019, when Vivien was here, and we would discuss these things. And she was very clear even that early on that the community, what they wanted more than anything, was an exhibition. They wanted to showcase these works. They were so proud of what they'd achieved, and rightfully so, of what they had achieved in their community, 

And they wanted the whole world to know about them. And I remember thinking at the time. Gee, I'd love to be able to make something like that happen, but I just don't know, you know, what that might look like and how we might get there. But bit by bit, step by step, we kept having opportunities come our way to build on the conversations that I was having with Vivien, first of all, was a very generous philanthropic donation from a an anonymous donor who really wanted to support the digitisation of some language, First Nations language material from the library's collection, and I, of course, had the perfect project to suggest for that one! And we were able to digitise the books. And then from there, well, even before we got to the exhibition conversation, we started to have conversations with our Publishing colleagues about Vivien was talking about wanting to write a book and wanting to write a book, not just herself, but with Samantha and with Charlotte Phillipus, who was very, very key in this whole body of work. 

And so we started that conversation. In the meantime, Papunya in the community, they created their own little exhibition in community that went to Alice Springs, and it went to Darwin, and myself and a colleague went to Darwin to have a look at it. And we said, you know what? We think we can bring this to the National Library. We'd love to have this. And it went from there.  

Karlee Baker: 

Thanks, Bec. We'll head back into the gallery now. We'll hear first from Allister and then Priscilla and Kulata Nelson. 

Allister Mills: 

Welcome to Wangka Wakanutja: the Story of the Papunya Literature Production Center at the National Library of Australia. My name's Allister. I'm a curator here in the Exhibitions team. I want to talk to you today about some of the themes that we have here in Wangka Wakanutja and why it's not immediately obvious what those themes might be. 

In the first and second room here, we have an introduction to Papunya for those who might not be familiar with the community in the Northern Territory. In the third room, we have Old Time stories, stories that have been passed down through generations, that are told around campfires that have been illustrated by younger generations of Pintupi and Luritja peoples, to pass down to their children and their grandchildren. In the fourth room, we have stories of contact. The community refers to them as when we met whitefella stories. These tell stories of early interactions between European settlers and Pintupi and Luritja people in the 1930s and earlier. The Last Room tells stories of the community as it is today, and was when the books were produced in the 1970s and 80s. 

As you make your way through the exhibition, you'll find that there's not a lot of introductory text to what each theme is and where it begins. We really wanted to allow the stories to speak for themselves and to allow the community to speak to them as well. As you walk through the exhibition, you'll find quotes placed around each room which tell you a little bit about what might be in the room. Each story comes with a biographical wall panel, which tells you a little bit about who wrote the story down or who illustrated the story, as well as a summary of what happens in the story translated into English at the end. 

The stories are told and written in Pintupi Luritja. They’re a way for people in the Papunya community to continue their traditions of telling stories. To pass those stories down to the next generation of Papunya community members and to teach their children, how to read and write in their first language. Each page, each illustration, is presented with the text that is written with it in the book, in Pintupi Luritja. 

These texts are important for community members, as they're half of the story, but we understand that not all visitors will be able to read Pintupi Luritja. The translated summaries at the end are a way for our visitors who don't speak Pintupi Luritja, to engage with the story that's being told through the book. 

The books are the star of the show. But the exhibition also includes artworks, maps, photographs, posters, newsletters and wealth of other objects that were created by Papunya community in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Dennis Kulata Nelson:

Hello! My name is Dennis Nelson Tjakamarra. We work together. Out of Papunya school. Whitefella and blackfella people. We working together and helping how to speak English. We teaching white people our language. Wangka walytja.  

Priscilla Brown: 

And he’s the illustrator too!  

Dennis Kulata Nelson: 

We learn ‘em, fifty-fifty like whitefella and blackfella. Same language.  

Priscilla Brown: 

The books he made it.  

Dennis Kulata Nelson: 

And the work is for education in the school. I am showing my drawing a picture in this book, when I work in the literacy work in the school in Papunya.... nineteen-seventy nine to nineteen ninety-nine. Ten years, I work. All these drawings. It's from the old people’s stories. 

Priscilla Brown: 

They tell the story for him, he draws the picture. That's what he do.  

Dennis Kulata Nelson: 

For reading our language. Two languge: Luritja and English. There's a problem. When I was working in this school at Papunya in the early days. 

Priscilla Brown: 

Hello, I’m Priscilla Brown, I just want to talk about, Dennis Nelson’s story that he has been an illustrator. An illustrator a long time ago that me and him used to work there even my husband. 

People who have passed away and what they're working together. And we made a book and it was illustrating the books that my daughter made and even my husband used to be, illustrator, you know, with them, with Dennis together, they always, you know, illustrate the book When they see the picture, you know ‘what's this picture mean?’ He write it down, in Language, you know, our Language. And Charlotte does that too. Charlotte Phillipus and Kulata. But he is the main one to drew all the picture for everyone else. And for the old people. He’s the one. My husband and him. Two illustrator. 

Dennis Kulata Nelson: 

Thank you. 

Allister Mills: 

These two pieces are recent artworks by Dennis Kulata Nelson Tjakamarra, one of the Papunya Literature Production Center's most prolific artists. 

Dennis Kulata Nelson: 

My father. It’s Johnny, making. Yeah. I made a picture about Johnny [Johnny Warangkula Tjakamarra]. Bird, I put him on nest. Making nest for the little ones. Devil! I made a little devil. He’s walking in the sand. 

Priscilla Brown: 

They’re watching him painting. 

Dennis Kulata Nelson: 

Man telling his language “that’s not devil, that’s plane! It flies around in the sky! You can go for a ride!” “Nah. I'm afraid!” . I'm not gonna. They don't know planes, these ones. Bush people! That's all from Mission time. Rationing. Rations. They have no money. They don't know money. Just to earn for tucker, in the early days. They don't know anything, car, or plane. They come from bush. They’re naked people.  

Saying “that’s a devil!” This one. And puppies, they’re frightened. [plane engine noises] The plane [plane engine noises] and the dogs, these get angry. 

“Hi hi!” It’s a whitefella. They don't know, they’re Aboriginal people, traditional people. The early days here. The old people telling a story. Like this one. An old calling, from my fathers. Johnny, when he was a little boy, like this or just a boy. His mother and father were there. I was nothing! A spirit! [laughs]. 

Allister Mills: 

It's a story that's told in numerous of Kulata's books, but he wanted to go back and correct the stories that he wrote in the 70s and 80s. He felt that his representation of the biplane wasn't as accurate as he wanted it to be. We've got the original book on display. Come and have a look with me. This story is called Ngayulu Kulinu Mamu. It translates to ‘I Thought It Was A Devil’. It's a story told by Johnny Wararrangula Tjupurrula to his son, Dennis Nelson, Johnny was at a place called Ilypili in the 1930s, when the planes first made contact with Pintupi people. He describes being scared of the plane and thinking that it's the devil, accompanied by an ominous big wind, a bad omen. It wasn't until later on, when Dennis saw a photograph of that early plane that had made contact in the 1930s, that he realised that he'd drawn the wrong plane. 

Karlee Baker: 

Well, I just love hearing people speak about their own artwork, but Bec, we've started to have lots of great questions come through, and I wondered if you could give us a little bit more about the ICIP [Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property] work that we did for this exhibition.  

Rebecca Bateman: 

Yeah. So this exhibition was developed when we were about two years into the implementation of the National Library's ICIP protocol. And so it was very timely both to be able to have some a framework as clear and as appropriate as the Ice protocol to be able to guide the way that we approach this work. But also, it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to walk the talk and put the ICIP protocol into practice. And that happened in so many ways throughout the the whole Papunya project, not just the exhibition, starting from, you know, in those early days when we were digitising the works and, you know, the principles around self-determination and Indigenous-led storytelling and correct attribution, cultural restoration of cultural authority, it was all there.  

And everything that happened with those books was done in consultation and reference with the community members from ‘were they happy for them to go on Trove?’ to getting them to book through the optical character recognition that initially happens automatically when material is digitised here at the Library. But we weren't 100% sure about how it was going to render the diacritics and the language markings that are really critical for giving the right meaning for words. 

And so we had the community look over samples of those to make sure that it was okay. And in fact, everything, every little piece of OCR [Optical Character Recognition] was checked manually to make sure that it was correct. And, you know, we talked about 350 books! So it wasn't you know, it was quite a big piece of work to things like, you know, a lot of the admin work and finance and all those behind the scenes things. And travel! When you're dealing with the community that's tremendously remote, very, very remote. It's all very different. And it provides, you know, a really valuable learning opportunity for an organisation like the National Library when we're embedding new practices to have an opportunity to, you know, really understand a) how important they are and why, and how we can make make them work. 

Dr Samantha Disbray: 

So in 2008, 2009 when I was working for the Northern Territory Education Department as the linguist, I went out to support the school program, which was a small language and culture program, working with Karen and Roslyn, and I asked, where are the books? I knew there must be a lot of books because, back in the office in Alice Springs, I'd found a handful. I knew that there had been a history of having a literature production center, and nobody really knew where the books were. Somebody said the a previous principal had packed them away into boxes. And there was a risk, there was, it was going on at the time that in various schools, materials were being taken to the tip and thrown away. 

And so people were really worried and anxious until we finally got the tip off that the books were stored in the old darkroom, and there was a padlock on the door to the old darkroom, and nobody was sure where the key was. It's kind of the perfect metaphor of lock them away in the dark and throw away the key. But the key was discovered. Previous, groundsman had had a key. We we unlocked, the padlock, flung the door open, found the light switch, and there was the collection, higgledy piggledy in in boxes in, Some of them were like, from the canteen, I guess, you know, chips and things like that. But for when you open the box full for spilling out with with hundreds and hundreds of copies of the books, you know, the sort of stripy shopping bags with them higgledy piggledy bent and, and so that was refinding the collection. And, that's when Vivien and I met, Vivien was in the community doing some other work, and, she was looking to find some books for a different purpose altogether. 

And that kind of started our partnership. Charlotte came and surveyed this situation, and, it just started a whole process of work that we, we came to do together over many years, which is culminated now in this exhibition. 

One of our really original and continuing goals for working with the collection was to make it accessible. So out of the darkroom, out of behind a padlock, accessible, but also safe and safe. Kept and documented. So that its history could be known. And that was, a set of goals that that, particularly with Charlotte Phillipus and the vision and I, that we all arrived at. 

By planning out these exhibitions, it meant that we had to bring community members and family and kin, and the original illustrators and authors together to make decisions about what books should go in, how they should be presented, to work through the protocols and the permissions. 

So it became the process itself of planning and exhibition became a wonderful way to create access, to create, knowledge about new knowledge and new, interpretation about the history and about the collection and having the exhibition first at Papunya with the slogan ‘At Papunya, by Papunya, for Papunya’ was a really wonderful way for for us not just to talk about having exhibitions and have people imagine what that could look like, but to really do it there and for people to, to understand how this collection can look when displayed this way and the kind of story that it can tell a larger audience. 

So that's why exhibitions were really an important part of thinking about access and storage and bringing this collection out of the dark and into life. 

Karlee Baker: 

We’ve started to hear some of that story of out of the darkroom. But can you tell us a little bit more about that Indigenous-led storytelling?  

Rebecca Bateman: 

Yeah, so I just love that story, by the way, that moment when, you know, those doors were opened and there were all those books just waiting to be rediscovered. And I think what really struck me about listening to Samantha talk about how that came together is when she spoke about, you know, the whole community coming together to tell that story and how it couldn't have happened to any other way because it was, you know, a story that was being told by the community, for the community. 

And when we said about creating the exhibition here at the National Library, we wanted as much as we possibly could for that to be, you know, the basis of the way we develop this exhibition as well. Obviously, we cannot bring a whole community of people to Canberra as much as we would have loved to have. But it was really, you know, really clear from the outset that this was not I mean, this is not our story to tell, and it would never have worked if for an institution to try and tell the story of a community when their community is there to tell their own story. 

And so we had to bring the community here. We did late last year, we had a what we called a curatorium, and we brought three of the people that you're hearing from today came down at that point. That was Roslyn and Karen and Priscilla, and they came down and spent two days with us. And really, it was just a lot of listening on our behalf as they told us what stories they wanted, told how they wanted to be told, what they wanted people to know about their community and their history and where they were from, what was what was important to them. And that's what was important to them was what became important to us. And I think that's the only way a project like this can be successful. And I think that's why you see such an authentic, and rich exhibition there today is because it's their story in their voice.  

Karlee Baker: 

Thanks Bec. We'll head back into the gallery and hear from Roslyn and Samantha. 

Roslyn Dixon: 

Hello. My name is Roslyn Dixon. I work at Papunya School. I started when Vivien and Samantha came to Papunya. About exhibition, about the books. And we decided to have one [exhibition] at Papunya. And we was looking around how we could do our exhibition back at home at Papunya. Had our exhibition at the Arts Centre at Papunya. Tjupi Arts Centre. Yeah. Alice Springs, we had another exhibition in Alice Springs, 

Now last year we came to Canberra. Looking around, we have to decide it how to put frames, pictures. They [visitors] will see how well what they do. All these things that they do at Papunya before. They'll come and see the pictures. Oh, this is how they was doing at Papunya. Drawings. 

And I also work at the school. And, I did iPads with the kids in the classrooms. Kids really love drawing on the iPad. They loved...We’re lucky to have them books in our school so kids can learn about language. Kids really love these stories. I was reading this book in the classroom with kids, and I really loved these stories. Over and over I was reading this story Tjukurrpa Wanampitjarra. Oh they did like nice drawing pictures. That's why kids love the pictures too. About the big snake here, Rainbow Snake. Thomas Stevens' story. This is the sad story... 

Dr Samantha Disbray: 

Yeah. He shouldn't have tried to eat that snake should he? 

Roslyn Dixon: 

This is another sad story. The kids love to see the pictures and how this picture was made. Nice pictures, drawings, camp site. And I was like telling them these men, kadaicha man. And it's like real. These two made little camp. Another one came, kadaicha man. I was telling them in my language, in our language. They was relaxing and just listening to the stories.

Dr Samantha Disbray: 

It's harder if it's in English isn't it? In English they have to concentrate a lot because they're just learning English.

Roslyn Dixon: 

Learning English. Yeah. They gotta learn two way language in our community. Even at the school.

Roslyn Dixon: 

Piḻkaṯi anta rikuta 

Ngurrangka paluru kuliṉi. 

Palunyatjanu paluru anu kantinakutu. 

Palulanguru rikuta mantjira anu ngurrakutu. 

Ngurrangkalpi nyinakatirra pukutju winganmankula rikuta mantjiṉi. Palunyatjanu rikuta winganmankula kuliṉi. 

Paluru kuliṉi rikuta ngarrirra. Kanya kungka ngalyankula wangkangu. Palatja nyawa piḻkaṯi! 

Palunyatjanu paluru nguḻu tjaamparringu. Palulanguru kungka ngalyankula wangkangu tjiḻpi palumpakutu.  

Ngali nyangu piḻkaṯi tiṉa. 

Puwalaka palatja piḻkaṯi kuya patjalpayi!  

Yuwa, puwalaka! 

Yangupala ma piḻkaṯi mantjila! 

Wiya ma kati kuya! Ngayulu nguḻurringanyi. 

Karlee Baker: 

Throughout the exhibition, the Pintupi Luritja text is prominent, and that's a very clear decision. But I did wonder if you were keen to share, what was it like to hear that the interesting for you, the one word that I've learned is rikuta which is a more modern word. So it's a very interesting one to, to play perhaps to children or to your colleagues. 

That moment of being able to hear a story in Language, and piece [it] together yourself. And so I can see there's a couple of reflections, thank-you for sharing those through, and absolutely, Olivia, the pieces that are in the exhibition are the originals, and that was really important to Kulata, wasn't it? That they were they were the originals, and they were framed beautifully as the pieces of art that they are. So if you do come on site, you can see those originals, or if you head on to Trove, the digitised copies are photographs of every page of every book. Bec, we've got some great questions here. Would you like to address Bryce's interesting question there?  

Rebecca Bateman: 

Yeah, sure. So, Bryce, a really interesting question around how, the readers have been used, you know, in truth telling and in understanding, I guess, the historical context. And I think it's again, I really I really appreciate that question. It's an interesting one. 

Obviously, it's early days yet and we we've yet to see how the digitised materials and the materials in the exhibition will be used and interpreted by different people. And of course, as we saw just now, listening to Roslyn, one of the very important uses is, of course, the passing on of knowledge and culture and language to future generations of the community itself, which is what they were written for in the first place. But when you think about it, and I was just having a little walk through the exhibition earlier myself, and I always find myself spending that little bit extra time in that middle room. So if you remember, Allister saying before, but that middle room is the room where we've showcased or where the community really wanted to showcase the first contact stories. 

So ‘when we first met whitefella stories’, and I think that's the those are the stories that we will see as being really important, but just incredible firsthand accounts of, you know, a really extraordinary part of Australia's history and one that there aren't that many firsthand accounts of. And I think that's where you can there'll be a lot of interest in reading those stories and what they tell us about, you know, I was reading, you know, one of the stories earlier when they were talking about, you know, the white people coming and they didn't know what they were seeing at first, and then they were given flour and blankets and all the things that we read about, you know, in kind of historical context. But this is very much more immediate and, you know, contemporary. And yet we have the voices of the people who were there telling those stories. So I think you're quite right, Bryce. I think there's a great potential here for, you know, what we can learn from these books outside of the context of what they are for the community itself. 

Karle Baker: 

And the next expert that will hear from is Vivien Johnson. So we’ll head back into the gallery and hear from Vivien. 

Professor Vivien Johnson: 

So the first iteration of this exhibition was, in at the end of 2024, in the gallery, cleaned out gallery of the Papunya Tjupi Arts Centre. And it was preceded the day before by this massive storm and said that the only people who got to see it was a pop up exhibition where the people of Papunya themselves, which was a perfect outcome from my point of view, because they were the people had been denied, access to this material for 20 years it had been shut in that darkroom. 

So, and then our exhibition traveled to Darwin and Alice Springs. And in the meantime, the the National Library had become interested. And, Guy Hansen and Rebecca Bateman traveled to Darwin to see the show when it came on in Darwin early in 2025 and said, we want to do it, you know, and, in Papunya show and also in the Darwin and Alice Springs shows, they weren't the original drawings, they were facsimiles because we didn't. We just stuck them to the wall of the art centre with those Magnart things that people use days it's just a facsimile. It's no framing. We couldn't afford it. And so the idea that we might be able to do a really proper, because the artist, the surviving artist, Kulata Dennis Nelson was very insistent. He said, it's okay for Papunya but I want them framed. 

And so to see them here on these walls all beautifully framed and given the respect that they're due, as art you know, this has been the whole thing about this, what I called before a body of literature and at that has been, neglected and actually not seen because it was dismissed as, like stuff for primary school kids, you know, who cares? 

You know, well, in my mind, what makes this collection of literature, different to a lot of Indigenous literature is that, by necessity, I understand this as a writer myself, you have to write for an audience that is sufficiently numerous, you know, to justify the publication of your book. But these books were written for the for the children of Papunya. 

They're, they're written, you know, by the people of Papunya for the people of Papunya. And that makes them really special. I mean, it's not the only body of literature that was created for the bilingual program, but I, as an art historian myself, someone who studied the Papunya art movement, for decades, I tend to think that the closeness to what was happening in the school of the artists who were right, you know, like ten meters away in the old town hall, creating masterpieces, does have an impact on the quality of the artwork that was done by their basically sons and daughters. And the writing that was it was interestingly, it was mainly the women, young women who did the writing and young men who did the illustrating. I don't know if there's any significance to that. That's how it panned out. 

But I do think that the fact that it was that we have here a window into a world that existed at in the 80s, at the time when they were produced and that was a time when the land rights legislation wasn't so old. And people were believing that with the bilingual program, they were given a way into their children's education. And, some empowerment in terms of being able to determine what their children were taught, and that they were taught in their own language, for example. So that there's a real inspiration from many sources behind these this particular body of works. 

But these books were written by the people of Papunya for the children of Papunya and, and in ways that were intended to engage them, by telling them their stories, by reflecting back the community in which they lived. 

Rebecca Bateman: 

So with the projects such as this one and working to an ICIP protocol such as the one that the National Library has, one of the really important things is to ensure that the use of all materials is signed off by the cultural authorities and the ICIP rights holders of those materials, and in this case, of course, the Papunya community, the illustrators and the authors of the books as the, I guess, copyright and creators of the books, but also as the holders of the ICIP that is contained within those books. 

And so that was a really important part of this whole project. At various stages from starting right back at the beginning when we were digitising the books, obviously we needed to have permissions to do that and most importantly for them to go online. Of course, the community were more than happy to give those permissions because it's what they wanted. 

They wanted to share this work far and wide, but we had to ensure that that was all signed off on and their wishes in terms of if there was anything that shouldn't be shared, not that there was, but we needed to be clear about that or that needed to be shared in a particular way, that those wishes were taken into account and those conversations were had before anything went live on Trove. 

Similar conversations occurred around the publication. The book that we've seen throughout some of the presentations, and the use of various photographs and drawings and representations of, you know, ICIP and cultural practice and knowledges in that book. Again, all of those permissions and those sign offs from the community, the rights holders, the cultural authorities were really, really important to get. And it really means that not only does it mean that we could digitise a book and make a book and make an exhibition, but it also means that future use is easier because we know you know who to talk to, and we know how to go through that process. 

Karlee Baker: 

Thank you. So to round out our webinar today, we will leave you with sort of a final piece from Vivien and Samantha. 

Dr Samantha Disbrary: 

Yeah. The collection’s significance, is of course different for the original authors or their kin and the illustrators. But I think for a wider non Papunya audience, the significance that I hope people can appreciate is that these books were created at the same time and by the same families as the very famous Western Desert art movement. So that was blossoming. And in Papunya at the exact same time that Kulata and Thomas Stevens and Abraham were pioneering this new form of visual art, of representational imagery. So as far as the art goes, collection is nationally significant because it's a really important part of the visual art movement. It's also part of our literary heritage. These, bilingual programs gave Indigenous authors the opportunity to write and create literature in their own languages, for their own communities, as the audience. 

So it's a publishing, a part of the publishing history of Australia that's really significant. This is Indigenous owned and led publishing, not for a non-Indigenous audience, but for a local audience. So for people to be able to tell their own stories in their own languages, for their children, and for that to contribute and be a key part of their education, that's really important as well. So these collections, as part of the Northern Territory Bilingual Education program, is part of the a really innovative education movement that took part in Australia. So on many counts, this collection and the collections, the other collections created at bilingual schools, of which there were around 14 that had literature production centers. They they contribute to our national history in many ways. And for that reason, they're really significant. 

Professor Viven Johnson: 

This is just a taster. It's just a tiny, tiny fraction of what they actually produced, like 250 books, over a decade. And it's an extraordinary rich output. The idea that people, given the opportunity, will have an application to what it is that doing that is, is quite outstanding. And I hope that people will be encouraged to look further and to search Papunya readers in the library's catalogue and to discover that there's so much more. 

And there is so much richness here. Spend your time here first, because this is a wonderful window into that collection. But there's more.