Kimberley Visions:Rock art style provinces of northern Australia(2014-2022) was a collaborative multi-partner project led by a team from the University of Western Australia funded by the Australian Research Council and Rock Art Australia.

This co-presentation showcases project highlights and provides Indigenous and non-Indigenous interpretations of Australia’s north-east Kimberley rock art heritage.

Research took place on Kwini and Balanggarra Country. In collaboration with Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation, Rangers and Traditional Owners, more than 1,400 cultural places, principally rock art sites, were recorded, and 11 sites excavated.  One of the Kimberley’s oldest known inhabited sites at 50,000 years old was identified, as well as sites used in living memory. Over 80,000 high resolution photographs and thousands of ‘meta-data’ records have been researched, resulting in an access-controlled visual and spatially linked database with heritage management functionality.

The team worked with more than 40 project collaborators including the RAA-supported Rock Art Dating Project, and is now driving research investigating the effects of fire on rock art, using the database to inform mining impacts, gaining an understanding of the relationship between health and heritage, conducting outreach to schools using the Australian Archaeological Association’s ‘Skills Passport’ for Ranger and Junior Ranger training, as well as co-designing Experimental Archaeology on Kimberley grass-print rock art.

Sven Ouzman is an archaeologist and heritage specialist. He studied at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa (1988-1992) and was head of the Rock Art Department at the National Museum (1994-2002). He completed a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, taught at San Quentin Prison, and returned to South Africa University of Pretoria’s Department of Anthropology & Archaeology (2006-2011) before becoming Curator of Archaeology at Iziko South African Museum. In 2013 Sven joined the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at as a Kimberley Rock Art Fellow. He has been Discipline Chair of Archaeology (2016-2018) and coordinated the Undergraduate and Honours programs (2015-2021). He has been Director of Learning, Teaching + Student Matters for the School of Social Sciences (2020-2022) and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.