Bark container

View this record on the National Museum of Australia's website

Type: Containers
Place: Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia
Materials: Bark, Plant fibre, String
Collection: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Art (ATSIAA) collection no. 1
Accession number: 2007.0053.0814

Description

An oblong container made from a single piece of bark. The bark has been rounded to form a base and two sides with the ends pleated and gathered together. The pleats have been bound with a length of fibre string. The exterior surface is pigmented in red. Inside the container is a nest of dried grasses.

About the collection

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Art collection comprises 2050 artworks and other objects. The artworks - which numerically dominate the collection - were produced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities throughout Australia. The accumulation of these artworks into a single collection has resulted from the choices and selections made during a 38 year period by a variety of staff working for the Council for Aboriginal Affairs (CAA), the Department of Aboriginal Affairs (DAA), the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC) and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) at the national, regional and local levels. The collection spans the years following the 1967 referendum, when dramatic changes in the governance of Aboriginal people took place, up to 2005 when the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was dissolved. It provides a snapshot of the diversity and changes in Indigenous art and its representation which occurred during the period of its formation. The small number of 'non-art' objects in the collection is also significant in providing insights into the working of the various Commonwealth bodies involved in Indigenous affairs. As well as the significance of many of the individual pieces, the collection is also significant as a whole, as a complex artefact stemming from Australia's history of governance of Australian Indigenous peoples.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 5:59:14 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2025-02-23. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.