Cultural Experience Essay

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It 's a necessity to draw a connection to the past and present, not only when discussing our own history and culture but the culture of the Indigenous people who were here before us. The reason for this is that not only if we understand their culture can we, as a species, improve, but it 'll also give us a firm understanding of a culture that was severely damaged by years of prejudice and hate, looking at this is something that will allow us a species to move forward. The site I chose to visit was at the Melbourne Museum, an Aboriginal Centre called Bunjilaka; the first thing a visitor will see is a sign that says “We welcome you to Victoria. We invite you to share in our culture and stories; to listen and to learn from the first peoples …show more content…
Bunjilaka is a prime example of how to draw a foreigner into observing the culture of the Aboriginal people, using visual displays that can allow someone outside the culture to easily understand. The exhibit easily encourages people to draw connections to from the past to present by presenting a linear timeline; covering various topics such as the people themselves and how European and various other foreign had affected them, and their impact on society today. Though, to truly experience the culture of Indigenous people or of any foreigner, one has to look past the colour of skin and look more at the identity and how ones identity impacts a culture. Blacklines makes a fair point that the “Indigenous people are used to create a counterpoint against which the dominant society can critique itself, becoming living embodiments of the romantic ideal, which offers a desolate society the hope of redemption and of recapturing what it feels it has in its march forward,”8 and the fact that people can understand and agree with this statement shows how far we 've come as a populace, and Bunjilaka understands how far we 've all come, Aboriginal people and non-Indigenous people alike, which is what makes the site a fantastic way to draw these connections to the past and

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