Save the Date!
2026 Mongolia Update: Cultural heritage in a changing world
A bi-annual public forum connecting Australia with contemporary cultural developments across the Mongolian Plateau.
Across the Mongolian Plateau, cultural traditions shaped by nomadic mobility, ecological and cultural adaptation, including diverse conservation, religious, linguistic, and literary practices have evolved over centuries. Today, these traditions continue to adapt in response to rapid social, economic, and environmental change across Inner Asia.
This year’s Mongolia Update explores the role of nomadic traditional knowledge, language, literature, music and arts and crafts in sustaining cultural identity and community across the region. The forum considers how heritage practitioners, artists, and communities are negotiating questions of cultural preservation, migration, urbanisation, environmental and climate change in combination with globalisation in the twenty-first century.
Far from being static remnants of the past, the cultural traditions of the Mongolian Plateau remain dynamic expressions of historical memory, social continuity, and regional identity. Increasingly, such traditional knowledge practices are also recognised within international efforts to safeguard intangible cultural heritage, including UNESCO frameworks concerned with cultural and natural diversity.
What to expect:
- Expert panel on Mongolian cultural heritage insights into Mongolian social, cultural and economic transformation
- Live throat singing and morin khuur performances
- Q&A with diplomats, scholars and cultural practitioners
- Book launch of Mongolian Healing: knowledge, transmission and practice across Inner Asia by Li Narangoa, Natasha Fijn and Benedikte V Lindskog
- Film screening
Mongolia Update is generously supported by the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, the Karakorum Heritage Foundation and the Embassy of Mongolia to Australia.
Karakorum Heritage Foundation was created in 2014 with its primary goal to protect, preserve and promote Mongolian traditional nomadic cultural values, customs and heritage. It also aims to strengthen awareness of Mongolia’s rich intangible cultural heritage and its importance to our way of life while ensuring that our traditions and customs are protected and passed on to future generations.
Image supplied by Li Narangoa.
Program
8.30-9am Arrival and Registration
9-9.10am Greeting with Mongolian Horse Fiddle Music
- Zorigtbaatar Batbayar, the Grand Theatre of Mongolian National Arts; Batsaikhan Tsogtbaatar, Mongolian State University of Culture and Arts
9.10-9.50am Welcome and Opening Remarks
- Professor Helen Sullivan, Dean, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
- His Excellency Mr Davaasuren Damdinsuren, Ambassador of Mongolia to Australia
- Katie Smith, Director, South Asia and Mongolia Section, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)
9.50-10.30am Keynote: "Healing in Writing: Mongolian Medical Knowledge Across Time"
- Professor Bold Sharav, President, Mongolian Academy of Medical Sciences
10.30am-11.15am Morning Tea - Archery performance/demonstration
- "More than a Sport: Mongolian Traditional Archery as Living Heritage" (with Bow and Arrow demonstration), Bayartsetseg Yambiidonchir, Bayar Archery Coach, Sydney
11.15am-12pm Keynote: “Kharakhorum -- Reconnecting Mongolia's Imperial Past with Its Cultural Future”,
- His Excellency, Nambaryn Enkhbayar, Former President of Mongolia
12-12.30pm “Seeking Mongolia’s Traditional Metaphors for the State: Gendering the Hearth and the Battle Standard in Prayers for Chinggis Khan-Worship”
- Associate Professor Dotno Dashdorj Pount, Waseda University, Japan
12.30-1.30pm Lunch and Music Performance
- Starting at 1pm Gankhuyag Enkhbaatar; Batbayar Zorigtbaatar; Batsaikhan Tsogtbaatar and Jozyef Indra, Artists from the Grand Theatre of Mongolian National Arts and Mongolian State University of Culture and Arts
1.30-3pm Memory and Living Heritage
- "Healing by Hands: Mongolian Bonesetting as Knowledge, Practice, and Heritage", Professor Li Narangoa, ANU
- “Back into Place” (Film Screening). Tulgur, Filmmaker, Director, Hanmu Cultural Media Co. Ltd., China
- “Pride and Cultural Transmission: The Case of Handicraft Practices among Kazakhs in Mongolia”, Associate Professor Chieko Hirota, Future University Hakodate, Japan
- Chair: Dr Uchralt, Otede, University of New South Wales
3-3.45pm Afternoon Tea
- Book launch of Mongolian Healing: knowledge, transmission and practice across Inner Asia by Li Narangoa, Natasha Fijn and Benedikte V Lindskog
3.45-5.15pm Nomadic Pastoralism as Living Heritage
- "Nomadic Ethnoveterinary Healing Practices and Knowledge", Associate Professor Natasha Fijn, ANU
- "Children Learning through Nomadic Culture", Gerelmaa Altangerel, University of Canberra
- "Keeping Nomadism Alive: Education, Intergenerational Knowledge, and Cultural Change", Egshiglen Chuluunhuu, Program Curator, Education and Heritage Lead, New Nomadic Institute
- Chair: Chuluunkhuu Baatar, ANU
5.15-5.30pm Closing Remarks
- Brian Thornton, Honorary Consul of Mongolia in New South Wales.