16. The digital mediation of film archives from the Strehlow Research Centre

This chapter is concerned with the history of the Strehlow Research Centre (SRC) with a special emphasis on the how the film collection has been handled at various points in the institution’s history. As an archive and research centre, the SRC has evolved from an earlier series of controversies around cultural ownership to become a leading innovator of the digitisation of parts of its collection. The digitisation of the films of T.G.H. Strehlow have led the collecting institutions sector, not only in technological innovation but also in outreach and engagement with its Aboriginal constituency. The example of the Strehlow Film Collection, and its evolution as a database and focus for community engagement, resonate with the issues that have recently emerged around archive/counter archive projects and participatory archives (Huvila) which have re-capitulated the role of archives in recovering the space of cultural memory and cultural practice. The chapter will test the proposition that “[…] the archive as a site for creative intervention, is one that enables new possibilities for preserving and representing individual memory within a larger historical consciousness” (Kashmere, 2021).