Australia ICOMOS 2013 Canberra Centenary

Robyn Archer AO is a singer, writer, artistic director and public advocate of the arts. She is currently Creative Director of the Centenary of Canberra (2013), and Artistic Director of The Light in Winter (which she created for Federation Square, Melbourne). Her selected speeches are published under the title Detritus (UWA Press). She is patron of numerous arts organisations and has received many prestigious arts awards. She is an Officer of the Order of Australia, Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), Officer of the Crown (Belgium) and holds honorary doctorates from Flinders University (South Australia), and the Universities of Sydney and Canberra. See more at the depArcher lounge.

Sheridan Burke is a Director of Godden Mackay Logan Pty Ltd Heritage Consultants (GML), has served three terms on the international Executive Committee of ICOMOS and many years on the Australia ICOMOS Executive Committee. She is a foundation member and current president of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Twentieth Century Heritage (ICOMOS ISC 20). Sheridan is an expert member of the Sydney Opera House Conservation Council and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra. She is the author of numerous Conservation Management Plans and UNESCO missions and heads up the GML Canberra office. She is an ardent supporter of Canberra’s outstanding universal heritage values and of the role of ICOMOS in forging a sustainable future for our cultural environments.

Christina Cameron took up her present position as Professor in the School of Architecture and Canada Research Chair in Built Heritage at the University of Montreal in 2005, where she teaches and directs a research programme on heritage conservation. Her current research focuses on documenting the origins and early implementation of UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention and examining heritage conservation practice in Canada from 1950 to 2000. Since the 1970s, she has published extensively on Canadian architecture, heritage management and World Heritage. In March 2008 she received the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Public Service of Canada, the country’s highest recognition for public service. Also in 2008, Hostelling International established the World Heritage Youth Award in her name. In 2012 she was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada. She is Vice-President of the Advisory Committee for Official Residences of Canada, a board member of Willowbank School for Restoration Arts, a patron of the African World Heritage Fund and Vice-President of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.

Diana James is currently a Senior Research Associate at the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the ANU and co-ordinator of the Australian Research Council Project Alive with the Dreaming! Songlines of the Western Desert. Diana’s research focus is on the dynamic visual and auditory performance space of cultural heritage communication. Her approach is informed by many years of working with Anangu peoples of the APY Lands who generously share their art, song, story and cultural performance. Increasingly the multi-media tools of recording available to ethnographic and visual anthropological research have enabled a more dynamic exploration of the many cultural expressions of Indigenous kinship to country and holistic sense of place. The current ARC Linkage Project Songlines of the Western Desert with the elders, artists, dancers and singers of the APY, Ngaanyatjarra and Martu Lands is investigating the important cultural heritage of their vibrant oral song cycle tradition.

See also the Seven Sisters Songline websites.

Monica Luengo Añón is an art historian and landscape architect, President of the International Scientific Committee of Cultural Landscapes (ICOMOS-IFLA) and Director of the Masters Course on Cultural and Natural Heritage: innovation, research and development, at Andalucía International University. She has also organised and directed seminars and exhibitions, and has been invited professor in universities in different countries. Monica lectures on cultural landscapes: inventory, management, restoration and conservation; World Heritage and historic gardens. She has also published books and articles on these issues. Monica is the Founding Principal of Arquitectura y Técnicas del Paisaje, S.L. (1990), dedicated to management plans and restoration projects for cultural landscapes, public and private historic gardens and restoration projects for public parks and urban spaces.

Jane Lydon is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the University of Western Australia. She has worked in Australian heritage for twenty-seven years. Her books include Eye Contact: Photographing Indigenous Australians (Duke, 2005) and Fantastic Dreaming: The archaeology of an Aboriginal mission (AltaMira, 2009), which won the Australian Archaeological Association’s John Mulvaney Book Award in 2010. Her most recent book The Flash of Recognition: Photography and the emergence of Indigenous rights (NewSouth, 2012) explores the ways that photography has been called upon to argue on behalf of Aboriginal people, and was short-listed for the 2013 Chief Minister Northern Territory’s History Book Award.

Brian Schmidt is a Laureate Fellow at The Australian National University’s Mount Stromlo Observatory. Brian was raised in Montana and Alaska, USA, and received undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1989. Under the supervision of Robert Kirshner, he completed his Astronomy Master’s degree (1992) and PhD (1993) from Harvard University. His research has been awarded numerous prestigious awards, including the Australian Government’s inaugural Malcolm McIntosh award for achievement in the Physical Sciences in 2000, the Australian Academy of Sciences Pawsey Medal in 2001 and the Astronomical Society of India’s Vainu Bappu Medal in 2002. His work on the accelerating universe was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Adam Riess and Saul Perlmutter. Brian is continuing his work using exploding stars to study the universe, and is leading Mt Stromlo’s effort to build the SkyMapper telescope, a new facility that will provide a comprehensive digital map of the southern sky from ultraviolet through near infrared wavelengths.

Sarah Staniforth is the current Museums and Collections Director at the National Trust UK. She trained as conservator and worked at the National Gallery before joining the National Trust in 1985. She became Head Conservator in 2002 and Historic Properties Director in 2005, and she currently manages the sections who advise National Trust properties on archaeology, buildings, collections, gardens and parks. Sarah has served on the Directory Board of the International Council of Museum – Conservation Committee, has been Vice-President of the International Institute for Conservation and Chair of the United Kingdom Institute for Conservation Accreditation Committee. Her current interests include sustainability and the impacts of climate change on cultural heritage. She is the author of Historic Perspectives on Preventive Conservation (Getty Conservation Institute, 2013).

Tapaya Edwards is a cultural ambassador of the Pitjantjatjara nation. He is a young man of exceptional skill and knowledge of Inma, the song and dance, of the Tjukurpa songlines that traverse the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands. From a young age Tapaya showed aptitude and interest in learning the language and rhythm of the long song sagas and his dancing skill delighted his elders. Tapaya was taught Inma of the Maku (witchety grub) by his grandfather at Mimili and his grandmothers at Amata instructed him in the songs and dances of Ngintaka (goanna) and the male role of Wati Nyiru in the Kungkarangkalpa (Seven Sisters ) Inma. As an Indigenous youth ambassador he has represented the APY Lands in national conferences and regularly performs with CARCLEW at festivals in Adelaide and on APY Lands. Tapaya is part of the cultural advisory team to the ARC Songlines Project and was the lead male dancer in the performance of the Seven Sisters Songline at the National Museum of Australia in March 2013.

Tim is Research Professor of Cultural Heritage at the Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific, Deakin University, Melbourne. Most of his working day is spent trying to figure out how cultural heritage features in issues like nationalism, post-conflict recovery, sustainability, postcolonial identities and urban development. He has published widely on these themes and conducted research projects in a number of countries in Asia, including Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Kashmir and China. His recent books include The Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia (Routledge, 2011)and Shanghai Expo: an international forum on the future of cities (Routledge, 2012).

Guo Zhan is a Vice President of ICOMOS, Vice President and secretary-general of China ICOMOS, Member of the Academic Committee of China Historically and Culturally Famous Cities, Director of the Board of the China Great Wall Society and an adviser in the planning and protection of selected cities. He is currently employed as the Director of the World Heritage Expert Committee of China, a non-governmental professional consultant institution designated by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH). He has been engaged in the protection of ancient architecture and archaeological sites in China, organized a variety of important cultural heritage protection projects, including the emergency reinforcement of the Potala Palace, the protection of the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes and the investigation into the ancient Silk Road. He has also made many trips to Tibet, and initiated and promoted the activities of knowing Tibet and helping Tibetan counterparts to strengthen the protection of cultural heritage.