An Otago Museum-organised exhibition which opens at Melbourne's Immigration Museum next week could open the door for other Otago shows to go to Australia, organisers say.
"West Africa: Rhythm and Spirit" features a collection of artefacts, photographs and film footage amassed by Dunedin couple Joel and Pattie Vanderburg when they were living in Nigeria in the 1960s and in Ghana in the early 1970s.
The show provides a window into the diverse life of 28 contemporary West African cultures, mainly based in Nigeria and Ghana.
Also explored are the ways the identity and creativity of the cultural groups are expressed through cultural practices rooted in long-held traditions and beliefs.
The show includes about 150 artefacts, including beautifully decorative cloth and jewellery, masks and intricately carved figures, organisers say.
Jointly developed by Otago Museum staff and the Vanderburgs, the exhibition was displayed at Otago Museum last year and, earlier this year at the Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, in Porirua.
Otago Museum exhibitions, development and planning director Clare Wilson said it was the first show Otago Museum had provided for the Australian market, making it "a big step forward".
The exhibition, which opens on November 12, has been provided on a commercial basis, and will run for six months.
The Vanderburgs had brought together a "truly excellent collection" and being able to display it in Australia was a "very significant achievement" for the museum.
Australia was a "potentially large market" for exhibitions.
This is the second sizeable overseas exhibition the Otago Museum has organised.
"An Abundant Land", a smaller version of the museum's Southern Land, Southern People exhibit, was displayed in Otaru, Dunedin's Japanese sister city, in 2002.
Mr Vanderburg said Otago Museum had done a "fantastic job" of organising and displaying the show, which he hoped would raise public awareness about the diversity of cultural life in West Africa.
He worked in Nigeria as an archaeologist in the 1960s, and was a biological researcher in Ghana for the World Health Organisation for four years early in the 1970s, where his wife was training science teachers.