See who the National Museum of Australia has partnered with—and why it’s so important

Posted on 3 June, 2022

What do the National Museum of Australia (NMA), home appliance brand Breville, and First Nations artists have in common?

Marking a culinary journey that spans 65,000 years, they’re coming together to produce a new exhibition that explores historic and contemporary objects in the ‘kitchen’.

Celebrating one of the oldest food cultures in the world, an Aboriginal Culinary Journey: Designed for Living, is premiering in the NMA’s new Lakeside Landing space to launch a partnership between four First Nations artists and Australian brand Breville.

Focusing on the continuity of cultural mark-making associated with Indigenous food culture by pairing First Nations traditional tools for living alongside modern kitchen objects, it explores the dynamism of an adaptive culture while fulfilling the Museum’s promise to bring Australian stories alive.

While the exhibition celebrates traditional objects used for food gathering and preparation such as grinding stones, cutting tools (flints), coolamons, firesticks, and baskets associated with First Nations food culture, it also unveils a new six-piece Breville collection.

Including a toaster, kettle, coffee machine, juicer, oven, and bambino coffee maker, each Breville object is illustrated with signs of Country and culture by Western desert artists from Kiwirrkurra—Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri (Pintupi), Yalti Napangati (Pintupi), and Nikua (Yukultji) Napangati (Pintupi), and Sydney-based artist Lucy Simpson (Yuwaalaraay).

Combining ancient stories with the best of contemporary design, the collection brings a little of Country into peoples’ homes, creating the ultimate fusion of ancestral Australian art and food culture.

Describing the exhibition as unique and “benchmark-setting”, NMA lead Indigenous curator Margo Ngawa Neale says the importance of the partnership is not only to showcase Australia’s culinary journey but also the high cultural and legal integrity in which it was done—including partnering with Dr Terri Janke, a Wuthathi/Meriam woman and an international authority on Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property.

“It’s a really unique and benchmark-setting way of a really socially responsible Australian company partnering with First Nations artists and with a cultural institution,” Margo says.

“These four artists did something I refer to as ‘wrapped Country’ around these kitchen appliances and they get an astronomical sum for each appliance because they [Breville] weren’t asking them to decorate them, they were asking ‘Do you want to put your Country and your dreamings on this?’, as they would if they had commissioned a painting.”

Initiated and developed by Alison Page, a Wadi Wadi and Walbanga woman of the Yuin nation who is on the National Museum’s Indigenous Reference Group and is currently Adjunct Associate Professor in Design at the University of Technology Sydney and founder of the National Aboriginal Design Agency, the Breville art project will be available for purchase by the public.

And with each artist owning the copyright for their work and receiving ongoing royalties for each product produced, Breville is donating 100% of its profits to the National Indigenous Culinary Institute of Australia, Indi Kindi by the Moriarty Foundation, University of Technology Sydney, and other initiatives supporting the creation of opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—a significant partnership for both the brand and the artists.

“Breville is doing this for positioning and branding as an Australian company and doing it by acknowledging the First Peoples of this country,” says Margo.

“Living in the heart of people’s homes, these once ordinary appliances, now wrapped in Country, become cultural ambassadors.”

Sharing Australia’s 65,000 years of First Nations culture in a modern-day context, an Aboriginal Culinary Journey: Designed for Living not only juxtaposes the idea that the highly sophisticated design objects provide the same service as the traditional Indigenous tools but is also pays tribute to the history (and future) of mark-making.

Bull kelp water carriers and wirrauwa (bark bucket) with the Breville Toast Select Luxe featuring Place of many seeds ready for grinding by Lucy Simpson.

“Cultural mark-marking is what we’ve always done since time immemorable. And we have moved with the times and some things remain the same, such as culturally mark-making things that are important to us in our daily lives,” says Margo.

“To me, it’s no different from an Aboriginal painting on canvas in your lounge room…It’s a way of having Aboriginal art and culture in the heart of your home.”

Running until Sunday 18 September, the exhibition will tour internationally later in 2022.