Last weekend, the Museum of the Great Southern opened landmark exhibition Kalyagul: Connections to Menang Country, an exploration of Noongar people’s role in how early settlers understood the Great Southern.

The exhibition, developed by Deakin University, the WA Museum and members of the Menang Noongar community in honour of the bicentenary of Albany’s colonisation by European settlers, delves into Indigenous people’s often-overlooked role in shaping how settlers were able to explore and study the region.

The centre piece of the exhibition is Robert Neill’s album of watercolour drawings of fish, reptiles and mammals native to the Albany area.

Neill arrived in Albany in the 1840s, working as commissary-general in Albany in charge of the army’s provisions and equipment, and fancied himself an amateur naturalist.

Through Menang people sharing their knowledge of the area, he was able to catalogue, collect and name fish species native to waters along the Great Southern coast, producing dozens of watercolour drawings and sending dried specimens back to England.

Neill was privy to knowledge and hunting techniques that were thousands of years old, and the exhibition aims to celebrate the deep connection Menang people still have with their country.

The Menang people’s collaboration with Neill at the time was both pivotal to how species were documented, and in creating a lasting and unique record of relationships between Menang people and European settlers.

Neill’s collection also includes portraits of Menang people he met and artefacts from Noongar culture.

The materials on show in Albany this year are on loan from all over the world, from museums including the Chau Chak Wing Museum, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Natural History Museum London, National Museums Scotland, and the Manchester Museum.

Artefacts from the WA Museum collections are also on show alongside contemporary cultural material made by the Menang community.

This exhibition is the first time Neill’s work has returned to the land he created it on in Albany, reuniting knowledge and history almost two centuries old.

Some of the researchers and Menang elders behind the major exhibition presented a half-day symposium at the Albany Town Hall on July 5, sharing some of the challenges and highlights of working with a significant historical collection and presenting it in a way that recognised and respected Indigenous contributions to its creation.

City of Albany mayor Greg Stocks said the symposium offered a rare opportunity to hear directly from those involved in bringing the exhibition to life.

“Kalyagul: Connections to Menang Country is a significant exhibition that has been many years in the making and reflects a remarkable collaboration between Menang community members, researchers and cultural institutions,” he said.

“For the first time, collections held across Australia and overseas will be brought together in Albany alongside local artefacts, helping to reveal the important role Menang people played in shaping knowledge and understanding of this region.”

Deakin University Professor Tiffany Shellam said the Kalyagul exhibition was the product of the Menang community’s knowledge and creativity being shared with researchers across Australia and the UK.

“Bringing together members of the Menang community, international and national curators and historians, this symposium was an opportunity to hear some of the stories behind the exhibition, and to consider the changing role of museums”.