THESIS PROGRAMME

Thesis Statement

In traditional museums, the exhibitions about trees always move the specimens or cultural artifacts away from their indigenous land to fulfill the requirements of the public and the society. However, trees should not be regard as inanimate objects, but as the witnesses to the story of loss, change and destruction.

This thesis is aiming to use the Creswick Historical Collection within the new research museum as the tool to challenge the dominance of human in traditional museums, moving the museum back to indigenous land and lead the public to rethink trees as living species and their existence as indigenous history observers.

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History of Creswick Campus

The Creswick Campus is located approximately 130 km northwest of Melbourne, in the town of Creswick near Ballarat. In 1851, gold was firstly discovered in Creswick which results in the excessed mining and settlements happened in the town, and the natural environment was devastated within just two decades (Anne, 2014). According to Mary (as cited in Anne,2014), the non-Indigenous Australians almost monopolized the right to use the primeval forest and treat the forest as the resources rather than the field of science.

In 1907, after the Forest Act 1907 finally established in Victoria, the forestry was regarded as an important subject of science that need to put on the table, and the Victorian School of Forestry was established to educate more forestry professionals into the industry in 1910 and merged with University of Melbourne in 1980. (Anne, 2014)

Figure 1. First class of students, 1912

Note. From Creswick Campus Historical Collection. https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/cchc/ items/show/5800. Copyright 1912 University of Melbourne.

Living Museum Preliminary Thesis Proposal - Living Museum 5

Figure 2. Wardle Wood Collection

Note. From Creswick Campus Historical Collection. https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/cchc/ items/show/1023. Copyright 1930 University of Melbourne.

Figure 3. Students in the VSF Museum 1953

Note. From Creswick Campus Historical Collection. https://omeka.cloud.unimelb.edu.au/cchc/ items/show/5798. Copyright 1953 University of Melbourne. 6 Living Museum

Creswick Campus Historical Collection

The Creswick Historical Collection recorded the development of forestry education over 100 years since 1910s and is the only forestry education collection within Australia (The School on the Hill, n.d.). It revealed the change of teaching mode from traditional methods such as glass slides, wood identification kits to new technology based (Anne, 2014). The collection also includes the VSF Herbarium and timber specimens that represents the research outcome of the staff and students. Aside with the natural-related objects, the collection also consists with historical images recording the past and present of the forest and the school, showing how the forestry education influencing the corresponding forest conditions.

In this case, the collection is not only showing the artifact itself or the history of campus development, but it also actually showing the process that people are leaning and negotiating with the natural environments. As the campus is exist because of the forest devastation, and the forest and the human being are getting the balance at this moment because of the forestry education development, the Symbiotic relationship between forest and the school is revealed according to this history.