Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park is seeking to become the site of Australia’s first national Indigenous museum.
The park is north of Cairns in Tropical North Queensland.
Tjapukai Board chairman Bruce Glanville said the proposal is to build “Australia’s most comprehensive exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and history”.
State-of -the-art interactive technologies would draw on artefact collections across the globe and would involve traditional owners from around Australia, he said.
“We believe a national Indigenous museum could be central to the reconciliation process by becoming a centre of learning, engagement and interaction that would give all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a place where they can proudly celebrate their culture and display it to a wide audience.”
Tjapukai is in the first stage of a A$12 million transformation to become Australia’s leading venue to experience Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.
“A national museum is a perfect fit as it would have an immediate global audience, complement the authentic cultural experiences at Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park and provide more employment for Indigenous people,” Glanville said.
