Members of Tasmania's Aboriginal communities are calling on international institutions to repatriate their cultural treasures, arguing "loans" are not good enough because "nobody borrows their own belongings".
The calls coincide with the presentation of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery's exhibition taypani milaythina-tu: Return to Country.
The exhibition, which opened in October, features palawa/pakana cultural objects held by institutions across the world, alongside artistic responses to the items created by 20 Tasmanian Aboriginal artists and cultural makers.
"It's pretty powerful," said the museum's former senior curator of First Peoples art and culture and pakana artist Zoe Rimmer.
"It's quite emotional to see all of that material together in the one space, together with contemporary Aboriginal arts, responses and cultural material made in response to these objects that are held overseas.
"One of our artists actually said it's like a collaboration with our ancestors."
But while the return to country of the cultural treasures has been celebrated, their stay is only temporary.
They are on loan from various museums around the world — something pakana artist Theresa Sainty finds hard to reconcile.
"How can we borrow our own cultural treasures or our own cultural belongings? They're ours," she said.
"I don't subscribe to the notion that we are borrowing our cultural belongings, our cultural treasures. To my mind, they are home full-stop."
Two-year loan 'quite unheard of'
Ms Rimmer said she does not want to think about them going back, but she appreciates the effort museums have put in to organise the long-term loans.
"A two-year loan period [for the rikawa from Paris] is actually quite unheard of — for museums to loan something so significant for that long," she said.
"It's really about building a relationship with those institutions and our community and getting that conversation, that dialogue happening, educating [the museums] about how important they are to our community."
Ms Rimmer said even Hobart's TMAG and Launceston's Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) hold "incredibly important cultural material".
"They have a very colonial past," she said.
"Although the museums have worked hard to build a better relationship over the last couple of decades, I think really the timing is right now that the collections are handed over to the community and we have our own place to hold the material, to be able to present it to the public in the way we want to do it."
Where does it go?
Ms Rimmer said even though the local museums are open to conversation, Tasmania does not have a dedicated Aboriginal cultural centre that can hold these precious objects.
"The petroglyphs obviously had a place to go back in country where they were stolen from," she said.
"But if you're talking about a kelp basket or a woven basket, we need to have somewhere both culturally appropriate, but also has those environmental conditions that we can look after, care for that material for our future generations.
"[We need] our own cultural centre to be able to present our own history, our own stories in our way, in a culturally appropriate way."
Ms Sainty agreed and said the community expects their cultural property to be returned.
"That includes anything that we find in the future at institutions and museums around the world and it also includes the cultural treasures that are on display here," she said.
"The responses from the 20 Aboriginal artists are testament to what our feelings are in terms of the importance of our culture being repatriated back home.
"It's as important as repatriating our old people.
"When you look at the responses … you see the importance of our community having our own Aboriginal-run cultural centre.
"We have two years I guess to find the funds to be able to see that happen."
