E04 - Carly Davenport Acker & the Power of the Living Collection

“I think that the way forward is through partnerships. It's not rocket science. It is really about various agencies coming together for shared common cause. And in terms of our own community development needs across the country in the big issues like environmental country change, climate change, that can only be solved through those diverse intelligences coming together. So I think partnerships is the way forward. It really is.”

In this episode Scarlet speaks with Churchill Fellow Carly Davenport Acker who works as a cultural intermediary to safeguard and facilitate access of art, stories and knowledge of Indigenous creators and elders. Carly has an extensive background working with not-for-profit education and commercial sectors to engage with Indigenous individuals, communities, and organisations around the world.

Carly believes in the power of collaboration, partnerships and local community problem-solving. Learn about some of the work Carly has been involved with in this episode of The Wayfinder Podcast.

Visit Carly Davenport Acker’s Churchill Trust Project Page here.

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S01E04: TRANSCRIPT - CARLY DAVENPORT ACKER

Yellow Edge: Yellow Edge, in association with the Winston Churchill Trust, proudly presents the Wayfinder Podcast. In this series, we ask high-performing individuals, how they plotted the path to success. Our guests are all Churchill fellows, having been provided the opportunity by the Churchill Trust to research their chosen field internationally. The Wayfinder explores the often-winding parts of how these fellows came to their professions and catalogues the trials and tribulations faced along the way, and now your host Scarlet Bennett.

Scarlet Bennett: Hello, and welcome to the Wayfinder Podcast with me today I have Carly Davonport Acker. Carly has an extensive background working with not-for-profit education and commercial sectors to engage with Indigenous individuals, communities, and organisations around the world. Welcome, Carly. Thanks for joining us today.

Carly Davenport Acker: Great to be with you Scarlet. Thanks so much to the Churchill Trust.

Scarlet Bennett: Carly, you've worn many hats over the years in the work that you do, but I'm wondering if there's a common thread. What is it that drives you in your work with Indigenous communities?

Carly Davenport Acker: I would say to that excellent question. There's… it's very much driven on my curiosity of source knowledge. So who are the storytellers? Who are the artists, the Elders, the community leads that have responsibility for bringing that story through to the next generation? That's something that I've been very-- not just curious, but passionate about in learning how those stories are told from ancient past into the future and how is it that digital technology and other means can facilitate that.

Yeah. Just to add to that Scarlet, there's probably a few things that really do drive me. I love seeing people's lights shine, and seeing their confidence, literally ignite and grow, and seeing that incredible connection in between Elders and senior people in particular and young people. And the way that the Elders look after young people in bringing those stories through, and there’s such a conscious understanding of walking in the footprints of ancestors and how that messaging and knowledge can come up and into the future for everyone. There's so much generosity there. So I've been driven by being a conduit for such knowledge to come through and who those source providers of knowledge are, and, often revealing or unearthing those people that have actually probably never spoken to a camera before or never share their oral history or family ancestral history or their local story for those people to realize and understand that their own personal story is so important for the national and world context, that their knowledge is invaluable for the globe.

It's that remote global two way, you know, sharing and there's so many people that within Australia, there's literally thousands and beyond of people that have never had a microphone or a platform, but their history and their ambition and their aims at a local community development level or for their family or their first nations business is the future. So I love to see that voice and those lights that be coming on and helping that come up and out.

Scarlet Bennett: That's just wonderful and so interesting to hear about. Over your 25-year career, working with Indigenous people then, are there any particular roles or projects that stand out as key highlights?

Carly Davenport Acker: There's so many!

Scarlet Bennett: Probably hard to know where to start.

Carly Davenport Acker: I'm very blessed in that I think they would be a couple of hundred plus, but I'm going to just share a couple today to get the context of those roles. And I think firstly as a young professional at the National Gallery of Australia in the mid to late 90s. I had the role of being a researcher on something called ‘Under a Southern Sun,’ a CD ROM project so that might show my age! (laughter)

I had the responsibility of researching and interviewing 12 of the 24 Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists of that era, of that time. And one of the Aboriginal artists that I interviewed and spent a little bit of time with was the great Rover Thomas and the painting that was brought up and out was Ruby Plain’s, massacre story, this beautiful ochre that was on show in the Gallery at the time. And as I researched and interviewed him in person-- I was only about 22 or so this that's like 1996. And I learned that the CD ROM would be launched with the first massacre story with an Australian school context. So when you're that young and you realise that those hard stories have not been shared within curriculum before.

Ah, it was amazing. It was-- I was daunted. I was overwhelmed. Yet, I was so, you know, lucky to be that facilitator of his story. And that then went on to influence a huge body of work that's been going ever since, really. And just to add into that second role would be as manager of Munupi Arts and Crafts on the Tiwi Islands. And I was there for just over probably two years and three months from 2001 to about 2004… or almost. And that time with the Tiwi people really educated me as to how important ancestral design and story and knowledge are for the new generation and body of artworks coming up and through, especially through the young people.

I facilitated Thecla Puruntatameri and wonderful artist called Jean Baptist Apuatimi to access the National Museum of Australia's collection holdings. And whilst I was in there with those two women, a huge box was unearthed and uncovered and the lid taken off. And Jean Baptist looked into that box and she's about 75 at the time. And she got quite teary in her eyes and she looked at us and she's, she said in a very gravelly voice ‘I’d wondered where that went to?!’ And I said, ‘oh, what's all this about?’ And she said, ‘…that was my engagement present back in the sixties, my husband Declan, he made that for me.’

Scarlet Bennett: Oh wow.

Carly Davenport Acker: Yeah, it was four faces painted on a Pukumani Pole in four directions. So there was four faces, times four horizontal, to vertical going around (total 16 faces). And then she told the story about how it was sold to the nuns at the time. And she was so moved, and so happy to see that particular… special, meaningful object. And to me that …we were just blown away by the power of the living collection, but more importantly, how people make a collection come alive and collections absolutely need people to breathe that knowledge today into them because often they're recorded without that knowledge of the first makers, the provenance of the First Peoples who've actually crafted those things. So that was just two examples, but just to weave back into the Rover Thomas story, that the planning of the seed of that massacre story influenced my entire life because I worked then at the Melbourne Museum and then I lived in Canada for a year or so.

And I came back and all I wanted to do was to work in the desert, remote communities. And I just felt that there was just some, you know, something I could do and to help and support, but that actually created a time and a project which was called Ngurra Kuju Walyja, which means ‘One Country, One People’ which created the international blockbuster exhibition called Yiwarra Kuju, ‘One Road’.

And that was a six-year project in my role as co-founder, project manager and co-curator. And the whole heart of that project was to unearth the massacre stories of the Western desert through local Western desert Aboriginal lives and voices, which was about 10 language groups in a satellite around the Canning Stock Route, which is a 2000 kilometre track in the middle of the Great Sandy, Little Sandy and Gibson deserts.

And so my role as project manager was to bring in those Traditional Owners and artists who could speak for that Country. And we did a six-week trip along the Stock Route with 65 artists and a film crew, and a team intercultural team of about 17. And the artists expanded from 65 to 110, and then on to 243 contributors in a two-year period. And that created the partnership with the National Museum of Australia Yiwarra Kuju: One Road, which has been shown for the backdrop of CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth 2011)and the International Olympic Expo in 2008 in China at the Beijin Olympic Games and in five of our capital cities across Australia and there's a global embassy touring, much, much, smaller photographic media show, that's going all over the world. So, it just goes to show that those (First Nation’s) historical stories of Australia, there's so much in which still must be told through First Nation’s worldview and perspective.

Scarlet Bennett: That’s absolutely fascinating. Is there a project then Carly, that's still tugs on your heart because you didn't achieve the outcomes you'd hoped for?

Carly Davenport Acker: That's such a, that's such a hard question. I can answer you to a certain point Scarlet, but I think I hope this will paint the picture. So I was living in Alice Springs in 2004 and I had the role of being an arts coordinator with CAAMA Radio (Caentral Australian Aboriginal Media Association). And my job was to work to the four town camps around Alice. And to work with all the kids and the young people and come up with an exhibition that would then eventually be shown at the Alice Springs Convention Centre. And that was an incredibly, emotionally challenging project. One, I had to drive the bus in and out of the camps. I had to build the trust of their kids and all their family mob. And then we had to come up with some artwork that was, you know, pretty good for them to enjoy, and their families to come, and for the local community more broadly. Over a several month period, we all came together and achieved that. And Tangentyere Council had a lot to do with making that come to fruition.

I think just to build this story-- to answer your question-- when I facilitated that exhibition, which brought a few hundred people and all the kids, and the literal lights on and everyone's eyes-- so happy to share what they had made: whether it be murals or painting car doors, or sculptures, or, you know, so many artworks. I just felt that I wished I had have been the older Carly facilitating such an important project rather than the younger Carly but if anything, there wasn't a problem with, or challenge with it other than my youth, my own youth at the time, facilitating such a unwieldy and challenging, you know, exhibition aim, and under probably tough circumstances as just one facilitator making all that happen. So I'd love to go back and do that again. I’d like to do it now.

Scarlet Bennett: But with the benefit of hindsight

(laughter)

Carly Davenport Acker: I’d like to do it now!

Scarlet Bennett: Wouldn’t we all! Wouldn’t we all! But with the benefit of hindsight then is there anything in particular with that, that you would do differently if you were to do it today? Aside from perhaps getting a bus driver?

(laughter)

Carly Davenport Acker: I would probably throw more resources at it. I think if you were to work with those communities, they truly need the creative industries to be invested in, in a really fundamental way that, you know, 20 years ago that wasn't quite there, but it was scratching the surface of even-- coming in and out of the territory and WA and far north Queensland you know, for the last couple of decades. I still fundamentally believe there really needs to be a bigger, more local and federal policy in investing into the cultural creative industries in remote and regional Australia. Because the kids that are there, the young people, the teenagers, and the Elders really waiting for such projects to harness and share their stories is like, it could be, it just needs so much more investment and flourishing.

So if I could change that I would love to. But you know, I think that's part of my plan is. It's to look at how such things could really become the forefront of important policy and investment in the country.

Scarlet Bennett: You've worked with culture design, music, and new media to bridge remote and regional industries and livelihoods-- in your experience what are the ingredients for success?

Carly Davenport Acker: Oh, look, relinquish control. Often the creative process is, it's not yours to have, or even the organisation that you represent. It has to be a collaboration through the many participants. And if you can create a space to allow that to happen, to actually let control go, so to speak, but have all of those ingredients there so people can interpret and create in a safe and trusted and open environment. Then that's literally where magical things happen.

And with that cultural safety, and proper investment, and collaboration and partnerships, literally magic does happen. Extraordinary truth-telling and the honesty, and vulnerability, and generosity of people to share their stories absolutely comes out to the fore.

And then it's really just up to those participants and stakeholders and the creative teams to record that and offer it up and out. But based on the intellectual and cultural property of those knowledge holders and those storytellers. There's several ingredients in there, but I think it's more a trust and the willingness for people to engage and to feel like they really, really want to share.

Scarlet Bennett: What would you describe then as the biggest challenges when you work in this space?

Carly Davenport Acker: I would say… fear, risk and bureaucracy. Those three things, particularly often with bureaucracy when it's woven together with risk management, it often stifles the creative process, or even the trust for partners, stakeholders, and participants to engage.

So as, as a facilitator, as a cultural intermediary, which is very much what I've been doing the last 25 years,is to check the investors and stakeholders and local stakeholders and participant’s level of trust and bring everyone together into the same woven basket, so to speak, and to allow for people to express their fear and express their vulnerability. And work through that to tangibly work through what those issues may or may not be, but it's actually being open to even having the space of that cross-cultural dialogue and sharing, and honesty and problem solving that makes partnerships true and strong and genuine-- and last for years.

Scarlet Bennett: I understand Carly that you were the recipient of a fellowship from the Winston Churchill Trust in 2013. What did you set out to achieve at that time? And how has this influenced your work and approach since?

Carly Davenport Acker: I set out to explore participatory media toolkits designed by Indigenous organisations around the world, and I really wanted to find out what makes participatory learning, using digital media and storytelling, become a vehicle to cross political, digital and cultural divides.

And there's probably a secondary, you know, investigation to that research. It was very much how can participatory media conserve diversity, cultural diversity, and also promote cultural leadership within communities.

Scarlet Bennett: Can I just jump in Carly? For those listeners who might not know what participatory media is, could you just describe what that is and why it's important?

Carly Davenport Acker: Absolutely. Participatory media is founded on cameras and recording equipment, literally being in the hands of local community members to solve local problems. And whether those community challenges could be climate change, or food security, or conflict resolution, just to name a big spectrum there, it takes away that third party intermediary recording. So it really gives the agency and power to local people to say hey, this is going on here and our families, our organisations declare and can see and can facilitate the actual solution. And often all is needed is investment into that space. So it doesn't have to come from outside. The investment can come from outside, but the actual problem solving can - nine out of ten times - happen on the ground in that local space.

So the participatory media is the interviewing, questions and answers and editorial of a film sequence that records local people discussing local challenges, issues, realities to camera, and then they themselves tell that story. They edit it and then hand it over to Government or to the philanthropist or the investor.

And I was able to see from the not-for-profit sector, the education sector, the government, and you know, that private sector where the innovation really is located also-- how these different kinds of digital storytelling toolkits are actually being used for those big world planetary problems.

Scarlet Bennett: And has the learning and what you explored then, has that had an influence on how on the work you've done since that time?

Carly Davenport Acker: I would say a 1000% influence of all my work since then. I saw community development at its best. And I've kept in contact with several of those organisations and agencies and institutions and woven those contacts and knowledge into the work that I've been facilitating at National Museum of Australia for several years, as well, based on those contacts and learning.

But very much I learnt about the power of collaboration. Which really is a fusion of intelligences, and a fusion of disciplines and approaches. And, and that really, you know, cultural expression is based on that as well. So we have to have a toolbox that is multidisciplinary, not just one or two or three things, but something that can be shared for everyone to access.

Scarlet Bennett: You mentioned the National Museum of Australia, and I understand you've recently been managing the Cultural Connections initiative. Tell us about this. I'm curious,

Carly Davenport Acker: That's been a nationally award-winning program by an incredible intercultural team that has been advised and guided by two senior Indigenous consultants.

And through this small team, we have partnered the National Museum to 10 local communities, councils, First Nations’ businesses, arts and cultural organisations across east coast Australia. It was very much in response to the 250th anniversary of the country from, from a Western colonial perspective. But what the program, the Cultural Connections program really wanted to do was to ask local communities in these 10 areas as to what has the history been? What, how important is it for you, and what are those hard stories today that impact your family and your life? And they very much created incredible initiatives at a community-led local level, whether it be: an exhibition in a botanical garden, or again, filmmaking and digital storytelling, workshops, accessing the Queensland Museum and different collection holdings to then interpret the history and the past from their perspective.

And through the last three years or so we engaged I think it was, you know, more than 674 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander specialists across east coast, Australia, which is a pretty big group of people with power and agency locally. And that was, that was an amazing thing to facilitate. And in addition to that program the Encounters Fellowships program was included and that gives six First Nations Fellows access to the National Museum's collection, as well as our role in partnering those cultural practitioners across Australia to other institutions with our partners, and also back to the United Kingdom and overseas.

So literally enabling practitioners to research and locate vitally important cultural material for their family knowledge today, as well as their organisations to then work with and interpret and, and very much a cycle of two-way learning in that museums lack so much information of the true language or cultural information.

The way that these collections have been produced is often through unprovenanced historical sources where things, you know, were stolen from the past. So how to bring in cultural practitioners to then tell that story from a local knowledge space really helps museums and the collections, which in turn enables access for all generations to know about our country and its history in a better way.

Scarlet Bennett: And I understand you've recently moved into a new role?

Carly Davenport Acker: Yes, that's right. I have, I am going to be working with Parliament House and looking at storytelling and nation building from a Canberra perspective, as well as looking at the outreach across Australia. So again, working with the Collections Department and the Schools Department and Public Programming, but being part of a special team that can work at the intersection of those different departments and engage professionals across the country that have contributed into those areas to help share the story of Australia in a really honest and truth-telling way.

Scarlet Bennett: That sounds like a fabulous kind of culmination of a lot of things you've been working towards for many years.

Carly Davenport Acker: Thanks. Yes, it has.

Scarlet Bennett: So, we have discussed things that have been achieved and things you've learned over past projects, but when you look to the future, where's the burning platform for you? What do you think really needs to be done?

Carly Davenport Acker: I think that the way forward is through partnerships. It's not rocket science. It is really about various agencies coming together for shared common cause. And in terms of our own community development needs across the country in the big issues like environmental country change, climate change, that can only be solved through those diverse intelligences coming together. I think partnerships is the way forward. It really is.

And when you look at say Europe and the United Kingdom, they have such a, such an investment in that space, at a policy and practice level it's really recognised that that partnerships and collaboration is the way forward. And we definitely need to continue into that vein.

But also again, through literally - participatory media, the digital media side, it's the technology within the hands of First Nations practitioners and organisations and the power and agency of that that's really going to set, not just the map or the bench-mark,but create the solutions that will ultimately be beneficial for everyone in Australia, if not beyond our shores.

Scarlet Bennett: And what is your moon shot in terms of where you personally might be in five years’ time?

Carly Davenport Acker: What a question! Look, I would just like to hope that I am still in an engagement role. Whether that's in one small community making a difference, or whether it's in a national cultural institution making a difference. I wouldn't even choose between the two because I've had 25 years moving between -on-the -round community organisations and multiple institutions.

If anything, I would love to still be continuing what I'm doing, which is that being the bridge between diverse organisations, as we try to make sense of and solve and improve and, you know, create more wellbeing in our lives. And we're all going to need that.

Scarlet Bennett: Yes, yes indeed. So true. Carly Davonport, thank you very much, indeed for joining us on the Wayfinder Podcast today, it's been a real pleasure speaking with you.

Carly Davenport Acker: Thank you so much Scarlet. Awesome.

Scarlet Bennett: Thank you.