Abstract
In early 2019, Australia’s Northern Territory (NT) government announced the $106 million funding and promotion of a new state-wide Territory Arts Trail featuring Indigenous art and culture under the banner “The World’s biggest art gallery is the NT.” Some of the destinations on the Arts Trail are Indigenous art centres, each one a nexus of contemporary creativity and cultural revitalisation, community activity and economic endeavour. Many of these art centres are extremely remote and contend with resourcing difficulties and a lack of visitor awareness. Tourists, both independent and organised, make their travelling decisions based upon a range of factors and today, the availability of accessible and engaging online information is vital. This makes the quality of the digital presence of remote art centres, particularly their website content, a critical determinant in visitor itineraries. This digital content also has untapped potential to contribute significant localised depth and texture to broader Indigenous arts education and comprehension. This article examines the context-based website content which supports remote Indigenous art centre tourism and suggests a strategic framework to improve website potential in further advancing commercial activities and Indigenous arts education.
Highlights
Several friends recently planning extended driving holidays through Central and Western Australia asked for suggestions and advice, hoping to visit remote Aboriginal art centres en route
The additional aim of enhancing art centre websites to support Indigenous arts education is developed using an approach which encourages cross-cultural connections between art and audiences through explanations of social, cultural and historical contexts (Vogel 2013). This context-driven approach is transformed into a strategic art centre website framework for content which fortuitously, incorporates many important remote Indigenous tourism attributes (Akbar 2016) as well as being supportive of the sales activities of an art centre
Art centre cultural tourism is a focus of this article, with the Northern Territory’s investment in the new Territory Arts Trail a catalyst for inquiry
Summary
Several friends recently planning extended driving holidays through Central and Western Australia asked for suggestions and advice, hoping to visit remote Aboriginal art centres en route. This context-driven approach is transformed into a strategic art centre website framework for content which fortuitously, incorporates many important remote Indigenous tourism attributes (Akbar 2016) as well as being supportive of the sales activities of an art centre. The overriding objectives of this website framework are twofold: firstly, to provide effective content to inform, interest and potentially influence tourist decision making and, secondly, to position art centre websites as globally accessible platforms for providing rich cross-cultural insight into the localised social, cultural and historical contexts of Indigenous art. It is essential that artists and art centres direct and manage any implementation of the art centre website framework within their own self-determined parameters
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