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Burarra Gathering

Sharing Indigenous knowledge and technology

Burarra Gathering: Sharing Indigenous Knowledge has now been decommissioned. The exhibition presented some of the traditional knowledge and technologies used today by the Burarra (‘bur-ah-da’) people of the central north Arnhem Land region of Australia.

Burarra Gathering is still available as an online exhibition. While exploring the same themes as the gallery exhibition, it uses realistic animation to take you to visit the Burarra people on their land. Go to Burarra Gathering Online!

The traditional knowledge featured in both of the exhibitions includes a detailed understanding of the natural world and how to live in it. It provides an intricate picture of the relationships that link people, all living things, the weather systems and the land.

Exhibition description

The Burarra Gathering exhibition provides an immersion experience for visitors, who can learn about the seasons according to the Burarra calendar, set a fish trap, catch mud crabs, find sticks for making fire and navigate using the stars.

Burarra Gathering at Questacon

Click the picture to download the Burarra Cubic VR (1.1 MB).
Requires Quicktime. Cubic VR courtesy of Ideum .

Australian Indigenous knowledge is part of a complex system of ecological understandings and spiritual relationships with the land. While Indigenous knowledge is many thousands of years old, the lifestyle practices are contemporary, living and continuously adapting. Observation, problem-solving skills and innovative thinking are essential to these activities and understandings.

Visitors learn from a Burarra Elder by watching, listening and then doing as is similar to the way that knowledge is passed on in Indigenous cultures. Visitors are encouraged to use their observation and problem–solving skills and to think innovatively about the activities they encounter in this exhibition.

The exhibition’s teacher resources are available as a single 4 page document (b&w pdf, 245 kb). There are also extensive teacher’s resources in Burarra Gathering online.