One of the most important facets of the Canning Stock Route Project is the return of content to communities. The enormous repository of knowledge gathered over six years of the project’s development represents the intangible cultural heritage of more than 10 cultural groups, eight art centres and 17 remote communities. The Canning Stock Route Project archive contains over 250 oral histories, including audio and filmed interviews and translated and transcribed documents, approximately 7,000 clips of raw film footage, around 150 short films, over 20,000 photographs, historical records, curated materials and a range of other research materials.
FORM’s commitment to create access in Aboriginal communities to the Project content has resulted in the Canning Stock Route Digital Futures Project, an ambitious digital repatriation which includes the One Road: Canning Stock Route Project app, which translates the content and interactive experience of Yiwarra Kuju’s One Road interactive into an application for iOS and web, and the development of a highly interactive, curated digital repository, Mira Canning Stock Route Project Archive. Mira, which means ‘to bring something hidden into the light’ in Martu Wangka reflects the Project’s aims to guarantee access in Aboriginal communities to content, which has been recognised as a national treasure, for generations to come. Visit the Digital Futures page to learn more.
The management and delivery of Digital Futures has followed a comprehensive approvals and consultation process with participating art centre communities. With the support of the Arts Law Centre of Australia and Herbert Smith Freehills, FORM has developed a pioneering legal framework, which both protects the ICIP of Project participants and allows commercial benefits to be returned to communities. The process of developing and implementing this framework has involved extensive community consultation including repatriation trips to Project communities throughout 2012 and 2013, and has relied on the commitment of the Project’s art centre partners to achieve this vast undertaking.