UK museum to showcase Indigenous art

Manchester Museum in the UK has opened a new exhibition co-curated by the Warnindilyakwa people, an Aboriginal community to whom the museum repatriated 174 cultural heritage objects in 2023.

Anindilyakwa Arts: Stories from Our Country explores the cultural heritage of the Groote Archipelago in Australia’s Northern Territory, and was created in close collaboration with the Warnindilyakwa, who also refer to themselves as the Anindilyakwa people.

The collaboration developed as part of the process of returning cultural heritage items from Manchester Museum to the Warnindilyakwa community in September 2023, the first time a British museum had returned Australian Aboriginal material beyond secret, sacred and ceremonial objects.

The return was supported by the Australian Government’s Return of Cultural Heritage programme and was a result of a three-year collaboration with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (Aiatsis) and the Anindilyakwa Land Council.

Esme Ward, the director of Manchester Museum, said: “These events reflect everything we stand for – collaboration, care, and the power of cultural belongings to connect people across generations and continents.