OzAsia Festival Keynote Address: More Than Meets the Eye
Safeguarding Intangible Heritage - Asian Australian Perspectives
Delivered by Professor Amareswar Galla,
Executive Director, International Institute for the Inclusive Museum
Monday 24 September 2012,
Dunstan Playhouse
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Podcast available HERE - listen now |
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Presented by The Adelaide Festival Centre's OzAsia Festival and The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre at UniSA
Intangible heritage encompasses the expressions and traditions of communities across the world, inherited from ancestors and transmitted to descendants, often through the spoken word and performance.
Many of these communities are now represented within our multicultural Australia, so the question remains, how do we as Australians acknowledge and engage with the intangible heritage of so many rich cultures? How do we also recognise the First Australians, our Indigenous Peoples, and reflect in our sense of place the complexity of both the original culture and subsequent cultures? Are we doing enough to safeguard the intangible heritage values that enrich, engage and challenge the Australian ethos and which so extend the possibilities of our expressions?
Looking at transformations over time, Amar will reflect on this fascinating topic through his First Voice as an IndoAustralian. In doing so, he will remind us of the North Terrace forum in Adelaide that put arts and culture into the landmark National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia, launched in 1989 by the Prime Minister of the day, the Hon Bob Hawke AC.
Silk Road
The Silk Road music project features Adelaide musicians presenting
traditional music from Indian, Afghanistan and the Middle East and brings
musicians of different backgrounds together to collaborate. Through live
music performances at festivals, arts events and community celebrations the
Silk Music group present the fascinating songs and music of this region to
the SA public. Three members of the Silk Road group, Feroz Ansari vocals and
harmonium, Jay Dabgar North Tabla, and Keith Preston Santoor and Bouzouki,
will present Afghan songs with a regional flavour during the OzAsia Keynote.
Biography: Professor Amareswar Galla
Amar Galla brings a deep commitment to the value of cultural diversity and rich
artistic experience to his role as 2012 Keynote Speaker.
Educated in New Delhi, a longstanding citizen of Australia and a global
contributor to multicultural heritage and arts, Amar's career currently
encompasses a leading role in the 40th Anniversary of the 1972 UNESCO World
Heritage Convention, directing the International Institute for the Inclusive
Museum out of Copenhagen (inclusivemuseum.org)
and as a Professor of World Heritage and Sustainable Development at the
University of Split, Croatia.
He provided strategic cultural leadership in the Asia - Pacific region as
the first Professor of Museum Studies in Australia at the University of
Queensland and previously, as Director of Sustainable Heritage Development
Programs at the Australian National University. He led a National
Affirmative Action program for the participation of ATSI Peoples in
Australian museums, galleries, parks and World Heritage Areas. He has
been a technical adviser on similar projects in Canada, USA, Belize, Brazil, Vietnam, India,
China, Norway, Greenland and several Island States. A past office bearer in the Asia
Pacific Executive Board, the Cross Cultural Task Force , and the
International Executive Council of the International Council of Museums in
Paris, he was recently elected in Singapore as the Vice President of the
Commonwealth Association of Museums.
While the views presented by speakers within the Hawke Centre public
program are their own and are not necessarily those of either the University
of South Australia or The Hawke Centre, they are presented in the interest
of open debate and discussion in the community and reflect our themes of:
strengthening our democracy - valuing our diversity - and
building our future.
The copying and reproduction of any transcripts within the Hawke Centre
public program is strictly forbidden without prior arrangements.