TASMANIA'S Aboriginal community is demanding that arts institutions stop showing images of their deceased relatives in any form without permission.
In a letter sent to seven museums and galleries, including the Melbourne Museum and at the University of Melbourne, the state secretary of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Nala Mansell-McKenna, has asked that any copies of busts of Van Diemen's Land chief Woureddy and his wife, Truganini, made by English sculptor Benjamin Law in 1835, be removed from their collections pending a meeting in Tasmania next week.
At the meeting, Aboriginal community leaders will discuss what to do with the busts if they are returned.
''Aborigines find it offensive that images of our dead are still being used without permission. We now write seeking agreement on what items can, or should not, be displayed,'' Ms Mansell-Mckenna wrote in the letter, also sent to the British Museum and Chicago's Field Museum, which own copies of the busts.
Ms Mansell-McKenna said yesterday the impetus for the campaign came from the proposed auction of a bust of Truganini, who to the offence of Aboriginal people is often referred to as the last "full-blood" Tasmanian Aborigine.
Last month, Ms Mansell-McKenna described the busts of Woureddy and Truganini as ''racist'' when she protested against the sale of a pair at Sotheby's.
The busts had been expected to sell for between $500,000 and $700,000. The vendors removed them from sale hours before the auction.
The Tasmanian Aboriginal community has successfully lobbied in the past against public exhibitions or displays of Aboriginal remains such as skeletons and ''death masks'', but Ms Mansell-McKenna said this was the first time it had argued the display of any image of a deceased relative needed the community's approval.
She said this could possibly apply to images in any art form including film, but said that issue was to be decided at next week's two-day meeting of community leaders at Risdon Cove near Hobart.
Ms Mansell-McKenna said claims that Truganini had willingly sat for the sculpture were suspect and irrelevant to the argument that the Tasmanian Aboriginal people had ownership of her image.
''People might say she happily … posed for the busts but I'm sure she didn't realise that her image would be used to signify she was the last of her kind,'' she said. ''The European invasion had happened and so I can't imagine her disagreeing with what they told her to do.''
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has yet to receive responses to its letter, but Michael Green, the head of Indige- nous Cultures at Melbourne Museum, said he welcomed talks about the busts.
''There's a need and desire to consult all the time with Aboriginal communities about how we use these images,'' Dr Green said.
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