Dr Stan Florek

Dr. Stan Florek has been working with Cultural Collections at the Australian Museum for more than twenty years.

His interests and some expertise are in the following areas:

• Collection care, enhancement, and research with use of electronic tools such as database, digital resources, integration of archival material, and creation of online content.
• Human history in deep chronological perspective through archaeological and bio-geographical material records.
• Early Indigenous technology, including stone tools, wood, bone, and ancient maritime technology in Oceania.

He is interested in visual art and narratives as a functional media in traditional and contemporary cultures; and also in population dynamics – how a population expands, preserves its equilibrium, and the social arrangements supporting continuation and stability.

Some of his projects include the study of boomerangs, Torres Strait Islander culture, subsistence, and technology related to the artesian springs around Lake Eyre in South Australia, Indigenous watercraft in Oceania, mining stone tools in ancient Egypt, Balinese paintings with their cultural context and rich pool of narratives.

Stan’s personal art practice includes drawing, painting, printmaking, creative writing, and (amateur) photography. He is interested in nature, issues around climate change, sustainable living and technology, popular science, Indigenous rights, social justice, and universal questions of human life and ethics.