Koorie Heritage Trust

Protect, Preserve and Promote

At the heart of the Koorie Heritage Trust are its collections of artefacts, paintings, photographs, written works, and oral history recordings. These collections form the vital foundation of the Trust’s mission to protect, preserve and promote Koorie culture. The collections are unique because they focus solely on the Aboriginal cultures of south-eastern Australia.

The Trust aims to protect and preserve the collections through museum-standard procedures of documentation and conservation. It uses the collections to promote the living indigenous cultures of south-eastern Australia through a program of permanent and temporary exhibitions on-site and temporary exhibitions off-site.

Most of the works in the collections have been acquired either by donation from artists or collectors or by purchase from artists, auction houses and private collectors. Some works have been specially commissioned by the Trust while others, such as some written works, were created and produced at the Trust.

The Beginning: How the Trust’s Collections Came into Being

‘The Trust is unique in a sense where it did things in reverse. Most organizations when they establish expect to have a building, supportive staff. We did things in reverse. We went out and got the collection.’ (Jim Berg 2003).

Click here to hear more about Jim’s vision of the Trust and then click through to Jim’s interview > Indigenous Culture > The Koorie Heritage Trust collections and history > videos > Click the image of elderly man.

It is difficult to talk about the Trust’s collections without talking about the Trust itself. The donation of a grinding stone to Jim Berg in the early 1980s prompted the idea of creating a Keeping Place to preserve, protect and promote the Koorie cultural heritage of Victoria. Established in 1985, the Trust, with Jim Berg as its Director, began collecting artefacts, paintings and books even before it had a place to store and display them.

In 1986 the Museum of Victoria provided the Trust with office and exhibition space, a relationship which continued for over ten years. The Trust raised substantial funding from various sources for collection acquisitions and, in 1988, a major exhibition on the Museum’s premises was funded primarily by the Australian Bicentennial Authority. This exhibition was the impetus for purchasing a range of contemporary artworks and craft items including paintings by Lin Onus, Les Griggs and Ray Thomas, wooden artefacts by Peter and Alex Mongta, basketry by Connie Hart and Emma Karpany, and jewellery by Maree Clarke and Sonja Hodge. Many of these works now form the core of the Trust’s collections.

The Collections

The Trust has now been collecting cultural heritage materials for more than twenty years and its collections currently include:

• Artefacts
• Paintings/drawings
• Photographs
• Books/ journals/documents
• Oral History recordings