Project partners exchanging ideas at the Weltkulturen Museum
Christina Henneke, Rona Charles, Kim Doohan and Matthias Claudius Hofmann in the depot of the Weltkulturen Museum
Leah Umbagai and Rona Charles in the depot of the Weltkulturen Museum
Leah Umbagai in the depot of the Weltkulturen Museum
The German Ethnographic Expeditions to the Kimberley, Northwest Australia. A Collaborative Assessment of Research History, the Interpretation of Australian Aboriginal Heritage and Digital Repatriation
The research project was initiated by the Wanjina Wunggurr community from Australia. The aim was to jointly analyse two German ethnographic research expeditions to the Kimberley region in north-western Australia: the ‘Frobenius Expedition’, carried out in 1938 by the Institute for Cultural Morphology (now the Frobenius Institute) and the städtischen Völkermuseum (now the Weltkulturen Museum) in Frankfurt, and a research expedition organised in 1955 by the Museum of Ethnology (now the Museum Fünf Kontinente) in Munich. Both expeditions were carried out by researchers who had originally worked with the Frankfurt ethnologist Leo Frobenius, and were among the first ethnographic field studies in the region to systematically document rock art and the associated narratives. Today, these records are of great significance to the indigenous communities, as Australian settler colonialism was accompanied by forced resettlements and expulsions, which hampered access to and the transmission of knowledge about the land and rock art.
The project, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), was carried out by the University of Western Australia and the Frobenius Institute in collaboration with the Wilinggin Aboriginal Corporation, the Dambimangari Aboriginal Corporation and the Wunambal Gaambera Aboriginal Corporation. Other collaborating partners included the Weltkulturen Museum, the Mowanjum Art and Culture Centre and the Museum Fünf Kontinente.
As part of the three-year research project, unpublished archive material from the participating institutions in Germany – including photographs, drawings, sketches, reproductions of rock art and personal notebooks – was collated, translated, digitised and made accessible in a jointly developed database in collaboration with representatives of the Wanjina Wunggurr community. The Weltkulturen Museum’s collection, which originated from the Frobenius expedition, was also digitally catalogued and integrated into the database.
The Traditional Owners regarded the historical archive and collection materials as a complement to and confirmation of their inherited knowledge. They interpreted the materials on the basis of their own values and cultural protocols and, on this basis, formulated recommendations for action regarding the handling of the collections.
The collaboration also involved the handover of reproductions of the large-scale rock paintings and portraits to the Aboriginal Corporations, as well as joint field research trips to the historic sites of the 1938 and 1955 expeditions.
One outcome of the joint research was the exhibition ‘Country bin pull’em. Looking back together’, which opened at the Weltkulturen Museum in 2024.
Project participants:
Martin Porr (Project Leader, University of Western Australia)
Richard Kuba (Project Leader, Frobenius Institute)
Kim Doohan (Project Researcher)
Leah Umbagai (project team member, Dambimangari Aboriginal Corporation)
Christina Henneke (PhD candidate on the project, Frobenius Institute)
Matthias Claudius Hofmann (Weltkulturen Museum)
Eva Ch. Raabe (Weltkulturen Museum)
Michaela Appel (Museum Fünf Kontinente)
