Similarities Between Projects
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Both attempt to showcase aspects of Aboriginal culture
Visitors are encouraged to walk amongst cultural items and interpretation
and engage with the artefacts or landscape
Both sites recognize the value of indigenous stories and representation, and
interest to a wider audience
Intent of both is to inform an untutored audience about aspects of
indigenous culture .
Differences
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Cultural Centre landscape created in conjunction with Anangu on their land
to interpret aspects of their culture they wanted to share
Thunderbird Park shows off a collection of artefacts removed from their
original context and landscape
CC utilizes existing site vegetation as part of the story
TP sets artefacts into a grassy lawn – traditional European Park presentation.
CC landscape is dynamic and operates at a scale subservient to the wider
landscape
TP is about preservation, with no seeming thought to placement of objects in
relation to each other or the surrounding buildings
CC designed to blend in
TP is a showcase for items to stand out
CC utilizes European ‘place-making’ skills to enable Aboriginals to tell their
own story in a way other cultures can understand
TP presents Aboriginal cultural items and interpretation in a European
museological setting
CC suggests Aboriginal culture is the “right story” of the place – wise,
spiritually and physically connected – the real Australia
TP displays curiosities of primitive Aboriginal culture for us to admire and
take home a souvenir from the museum store – totems anyone?
CC is an attempt of indigenous people to reclaim their narrative of place,
while somehow engaging in ‘the tourist experience’ at the same time
Totems at TP are recognized as ‘iconic’ – no longer Indian but ‘First Nations’
– yet their meaning is not necessarily understood even as they are preserved
CC has reverted to traditional Aboriginal place names for the Park
TP is named after a carved figurine on one of the totems