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  • 2009 Design Challenge: Fire
  • A Day in Pompeii
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  • agIdeas NewStar 2012
  • Ancestral Power and the Aesthetic
  • Archaeological Time Capsule
  • Birds of Paradise
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  • Colliding Worlds
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  • Design Now!
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  • Five things about Charles Darwin
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  • Fringe Furniture
  • Fringe Furniture 2008
  • Glenn Murcutt
  • Great White Fleet
  • Hatching the Past
  • Honey bees
  • INNOVIC's Next Big Thing Award
  • John Rodriquez – Textile Designer
  • Launch Pad 2008
  • Leadbeater's Possum
  • Living in a Sensory World
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  • Mirror: Jeannie Baker
  • Miss Australia
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  • New Views 2
  • Paragon Shoes
  • Phar Lap Reunion
  • Phar Lap the Wonder Horse
  • Pompeii Body Casts
  • Premier's Design Awards 2008
  • Shutter Up You Face
  • Southern Diversity
  • Spirit of the Games
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  • The Wonders of Ancient Mesopotamia
  • Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition
  • To Mars and Beyond
  • Toolayn Koortakay
  • Top Designs 2010
  • Top Designs 2011
  • Top Designs 2012
  • Treasures
  • Trepang
  • Tutankhamun
  • Vintage Christmas Decorations
  • We Depend on Nature
  • Zmood: designing Holdens

Ancestral Power and the Aesthetic

Arnhem Land paintings and objects from the Donald Thomson Collection.

This exhibition showcases the extraordinary painted works collected from Arnhem Land during the 1930s and 1940s by the Melbourne-based anthropologist, the late Professor Donald Thomson (1901-1970).

Including bark paintings and objects decorated with sacred clan designs.

The paintings featured in this exhibition illustrate the differences in painting styles between Dhuwa and Yirritja clans and between those of central and eastern Arnhem Land. 

Ancestral Power and Aesthetic: Arnhem Land paintings and objects from the Donald Thomson Collection was developed by Museum Victoria in association with the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne.