Workshop: Translocated Nature from Australia as Indigenous Cultural Belongings

The Berlin’s Australian Archive team announces a public event as part two-day workshop, “Translocated Nature from Australia as Indigenous Cultural Belongings,” taking place at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin on 8–9 October 2025. Co-hosted with the Center for Humanities of Nature, the event is part of the provenance research project Berlin’s Australian Archive.

Over the past two years, the project has examined the museum’s Australian collections, raising questions about the role of natural history institutions in acknowledging the continuing significance of translocated nature for First Peoples. The workshop explores how German museums can critically confront colonial entanglements, support the recovery of Indigenous knowledges and practices embedded in collections, and engage with sovereignty claims over specimens as Indigenous cultural belongings. Scholars and museum professionals from Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom will gather to reflect on these challenges and foster decolonial collaboration.

Over the past two years, the Berlin’s Australian Archive project has been working with the MfN’s Australian collections. Central to this work are the questions:
– How can German natural history institutions acknowledge the continuing significance of translocated nature to First Peoples?
– How can they critically address the colonial entanglements of German natural history while also supporting the recovery of Indigenous knowledges and practices held within their collections?
– And how can this work support First Peoples’ sovereignty claims over natural collections as Indigenous cultural belongings?

The workshop brings together museum professionals and academics from Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom to engage with these questions.