Mark Brown, an exhibition coordinator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, pushes a trolley bearing fragile Aboriginal 'Morning Star Poles' past a group of landscape paintings as he prepares the upcoming exhibition called the Laverty Collection in Sydney June 17. The exhibition of 37 artists is one of the largest and diverse private collections of contemporary Australian art, on loan to the museum from the Laverty family. The poles are religious and ceremonial objects from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory made from feathers, ochre, string and milkwood. The paintings by eight Aboriginal women elders depict local plants and animals known as 'bushtucker'.

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