Museums Australia Magazine 20(4) Winter 2012

vol 20 (4) – winter 2012 $15.00

Museums Australia

MUSEUMS AUSTRALIA NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2012

Research and collections

in a connected world 24-28 September 2012, University of Adelaide, South Australia

24-28 September 2012, Adelaide, South Australia

In a connected world information is everywhere.

How can museums and galleries contribute to the needs of a world that is awash with information but hungry for meaning?

The 2012 Museums Australia National Conference, “Research and collections in a connected world�, will explore the potential of research: w By museums: the role of collections and curatorial expertise in understanding current global challenges such as climate change; w With museums: research collaborations with industry, academia, government and community; w About museums: how the process and outcomes of research can transform the social, economic and educational role of museums in a rapidlychanging world.

Registration is open Early bird closes 13 July 2012 Museums Australia National Conference 2012 acknowledges the support of

www.ma2012.org.au

[

Join Museums Australia Be part of conversations, information networks and events for people who love museums and galleries.

Museums Australia connects individuals and institutions to the sector locally, nationally and internationally through our National Networks, State and Territory Branches, Chapters and through our partnership with ICOM Australia.

Various categories of membership are available – including concession rates – each with their own benefits.

Information is available online or through the National Office.

Telephone (02) 6230 0346 Email ma@museumsaustralia.org.au Web www.museumsaustralia.org.au

]

call for entries

The Museums and Galleries National Awards, or MAGNAs recognise excellent work nationally in the categories of exhibition, public programs and sustainability projects.

The MAGNAs are open to all Australian and New Zealand cultural collecting institutions.

Call for entries are open from 1 June 2012. Winners will be presented at the 2012 National Conference in Adelaide.

exhibitions A physical or virtual interpreted presentation of materials owned or borrowed by the institution.

public programs Community development and education projects that promote the institution’s vision and collection.

sustainability Any project that promotes sustainable practices. Including architecture, collection management, administration, technology and media, energy consumption, and adaptive reuse projects.

For further information on the awards please visit www.museumsaustralia.org.au/site/magna.php

The ACT Branch of Museums Australia is very pleased to be hosting the MA National Conference in Canberra’s centenary year 2013. The theme is: How museums work: people, industry and nation.

We will reflect on how museums and galleries work in the 21st century and what ideas will drive them in the future: • • • •

Working in museums - The nature of work is changing in society at large, so it is little wonder that work in museums is also changing, both for museum professionals and for volunteers. Where are you in your career and what’s next?

Working together - Museums operate in very different environments but as one national community. What opportunities exist for collaborations, partnerships and alignments across the country and internationally?

The business of museums - Museums are both a business and an industry, and have close connections with other industries such as education, tourism and entertainment. How will we manage with resources under challenge and audiences looking for more?

Telling our stories and imagining the future - The contesting of ideas about nationhood occurs around the country, not just in Canberra. What are our stories and how are they interpreted in regional, state and national museums and galleries? And what ideas will we explore as we move into the future?

For more information visit

www.ma2013.org.au

AF T

T RS

TAR R

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Museums Australia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards 2012 Celebrating excellence in design and communication in the museum and collection sector across Australia and New Zealand Call for entries open 1 June 2012 Entry forms available online @ <www.museumsaustralia.org.au>

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8 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

Contents

In this issue Museums Australia National Council 2012—2013 Contents

president

Andrew Sayers AM (Director, National Museum of Australia, Canberra)

President’s Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 A New Museum for Western Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Museums Australia celebrates International Museum Day, 18 May 2012. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Maritime Museums’ Survey of Heritage Vessels . . . . . . 15 Developing the Defence of Darwin Experience. . . . 17

vice-president

Belinda Cotton (Head, Travelling Exhibitions, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra) treasurer

Suzanne Bravery (Manager, Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne) secretary

William (Bill) Storer (previously: President, MA-NSW; Chair, Community Museums National Network; Newcastle) members

Belinda Nemec (Museum consultant, Melbourne)

The Architecture Museum, School of Art,

Meredith Blake (Research Fellow, RMIT University, Melbourne)

Architecture and Design, University of South

Rebekah Butler (Executive Director, Museum & Gallery Services Queensland, Brisbane)

Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 A new national research project: Australian Art Exhibitions 1968–2009: a generation of cultural transformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Richard Mulvaney (Director, Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston) Robert Heather (Event & Exhibition Manager, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne) Soula Veyradier (Manager, WA Museum, Perth) ex officio member

Book review: Museums in the Material World. . . . . . . . . 34

Frank Howarth (Chair, ICOM Australia), Director, Australian Museum public officer

COVER IMAGE: Student work by Russell Ellis, 1932, Ellis collection. Image courtesy The Architecture Museum, School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia.

Dr Don McMichael CBE, Red Hill, Canberra state/territory branch presidents/ representatives (subject to change throughout year)

ACT Carol Cartwright (Former Head, Education & Visitor Services, Australian War Memorial, Canberra)

Museums Australia Magazine PO Box 266, Civic Square ACT 2608 Editorial: (02) 6230 0346 Advertising: 02) 6230 0346 Subscriptions: (02) 6230 0346 Fax: (02) 6230 0360 editor@museumsaustralia.org.au www.museumsaustralia.org.au Editor: Bernice Murphy Design: Selena Kearney, Little Cloud Print: BlueStar Print, Canberra

Printed on 100% Australian, 70-100% recycled carbon neutral paper stock.

© Museums Australia and individual authors.

NSW Dr Andrew Simpson (Director, Museum Studies Program, Macquarie University, Sydney)

No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

NT Michelle Smith (Curator, Territory History, Museum of Central Australia, Alice Springs)

Museums Australia Magazine is published quarterly and on-line on the MA Website, and is a major link with members and the museums sector. Museums Australia Magazine is a forum for news, opinion and debate on museum issues.

SA Regan Forrest (PhD Candidate, Adelaide)

Contributions from those involved or interested in museums and galleries are welcome. Museums Australia Magazine reserves the right to edit, abridge, alter or reject any material. Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher or editor. Publication of an advertisement does not imply endorsement by Museums Australia, its affiliates or employees.

Museums Australia is proud to acknowledge the following supporters of the national organisation: Australian Government Office for the Arts and Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities; National Museum of Australia; Museum Victoria (Melbourne Museum); Western Australian Museum; and Link Digital (Canberra).

Print Post Publication No: 332582/00001 ISSN 1038-1694

TAS Sue Atkinson (Museum Consultant, Tasmania) QLD Edith Cuffe (Director, Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology, Caboolture) VIC Daniel Wilksch (Coordinator, Digital Projects, Public Record Office Victoria, Melbourne) WA Soula Veyradier (Manager, WA Museum, Perth)

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 9

President’s Message

I

am delighted to have accepted the MA National Council’s offer to take up the position as your new National President.

I took up the role following the AGM of Museums Australia on 17 May – on the eve of International Museum Day. I would like to begin by paying tribute to past President, Dr Darryl McIntyre, who decided to step down after three years’ service in this leadership role, and to acknowledge on behalf of all members and Council his contribution to the welfare of Museums Australia and the sector at large over many years.

Today, in museums, we confront an environment of mixed fortunes. On the one hand, museums are enjoying a great profile with successful exhibitions and far-reaching public programs. Governments are recognising that museums have a large and far-reaching role to play in two vital areas – education and tourism.

In the field of education, museums have vast reserves of knowledge and content; they also have the expertise and enthusiasm to enliven life-long learning.

The alignment of museums with emerging curricula, and the provision of life-long learning resources in an information-hungry society, is a large and important task, recognised by all.

In the area of tourism, it is now clear that major exhibitions not only deliver direct cultural enrichment to their visitors but also yield real economic benefits.

This is a good environment, particularly for larger museums in our capital cities and larger regional centres. And in regional Australia, smaller museums contribute important elements of the dynamic infrastructure needed to support tourism on a national level. Regional historical collections, galleries and museums provide entry-points to an understanding of a particular place, local history or community, and in so doing they contribute to a national picture of our heritage.

There is much talk at the moment about ‘two-speed economies’. In museums, we are witnessing a version of this phenomenon. Whilst museums are demonstrating success in many areas, there are parts of our

business that are more difficult and challenging.

The nature of museums means that we have a real responsibility to the physical fabric of our collections – to their conservation, housing, continuing interpretation and ongoing engagement and access.

Investment in infrastructure – buildings and the energy to run them – always looms large in the deliberations of those of us who run museums. Because this investment is very considerable, we are often slowed by under-funding in infrastructure development areas; this constrains our commitment to doing the exciting things we would love to do in terms of delivering new programs.

Training is an essential part of our capacity to look after the nation’s material culture. We need more museum-specific training in this country and Museums Australia plays a key role in this area. Museums Australia’s National Office is again partnering this year with the Gordon Darling Foundation in providing administrative support for realisation of the outstanding biennial Museum Leadership Program, coordinated and substantially funded by the GDF foundation since 1999.

In terms of ongoing professional development and training, Museums Australia’s National Conferences are pivotal. As the peak national gatherings, the MA National Conferences offer reflections on the latest museum thinking, drawing attention to current issues for Australia and the world. They also stimulate and highlight the work of the sector on an annual basis.

The National Conference this year in Adelaide (24–28 Sept. 2012) promises to bring together a rich program of sessions and guest speakers with a focus on collections, research and the eve-present challenges of the sustainability of our institutions.

I look forward to meeting you face-to-face at the National Conference in Adelaide in September, and I am keen to engage with members, with ideas - and with the burning issues. [ ] Andrew Sayers AM National President, Museums Australia (Director, National Museum of Australia)

10 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

WA’s state museum redevelopment receives huge backing from government

A New Museum for Western Australia top: middle: bottom: left: right:

Alec Coles

T

he 18th May 2012 will go down as an important date in the history of the Western Australian Museum. After many years of anticipation, the WA Government has committed to proceed with the development of a new WA Museum building in the Perth Cultural Centre.

The proposal that was approved is for a $428.3 million redevelopment project to take place over the next seven to eight years. Importantly, more than $70 million has been earmarked in the State’s forward estimates to fund project definition, design and the early phases of construction.

The development will include a new building that will integrate with the Museum’s existing heritage buildings to create a flagship museum of around 23,000m2.

Our current site encompasses a mix of heritage buildings, including Perth’s Old Gaol building (completed in 1856, and also the location for Perth’s first (geological) museum in 1891) through to the Jubilee, Beaufort, and Hackett wings of the WA Museum that were variously built in the period from the 1890s to the early 1900s.

Ironically, one building that will not be re-developed

is the most recent – the purpose-built Francis Street building, constructed for the WA Museum in the 1970s. This building was closed in 2003 due to safety issues as a result of asbestos used in the fabric of the building.

At that time, the staff and collections were moved into the WA Museum’s Collection and Research Centre in Welshpool, on the south side of the city, and since then a new Museum development has been under consideration.

Our new Museum will include 8,500m2 of public gallery space, incorporating a publicly accessible collections facility where a selection of the Museum’s extensive collections will be made available, together with a touring exhibition space of 1000m2.

The redevelopment of the Western Australian Museum, encompassing new and refurbished heritage buildings, will provide active interpretation of the Museum’s collections, offering visitors opportunities to engage directly with both staff and collection items, including the opportunity to see working laboratory spaces for the preparation and conservation of these collections.

The majority of the collections will, however, remain housed at the southern Welshpool Collection and Research Centre. As part of the total redevelopment

above: top:

Alec Coles

Western Australian Museum, Perth. Photo: WA Museum

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 11

top: middle: bottom: left: right:

above:

Jubilee wing circa 1900 © State Library of Western Australia

project, however, elements of the Collection and Research Centre will also be refurbished, with new laboratories and upgrades to some storage facilities included.

The constellation of new facilities will crystallise and epitomise the Western Australian Museum’s mission to inspire people to explore and share their identity, culture, environment and sense of place, and to experience and contribute to the diversity and creativity of our world.

The WA Musuem will aim to provide opportunities for engagement and participation of the widest possible audience, and it will do this by organising the exhibitions and interpretive strategy around three overarching themes: • Being Western Australian – the inclusive museum will explore issues of identity, diversity, community, origins and relationships, and promote awareness and understanding of cultural practices and expression. How do we relate to each other and to our world? What are our shared heritages?

How do we live together and understand each other, and define our place in the world?

• Discovering Western Australia – the state Museum for Western Australia must act as a

gateway to this extraordinary State and its amazing geological and human history: its hosting of some of the oldest evidence of life on Earth; its ancient landscape; its amazing biodiversity; and its long and diverse history of human settlement.

• Exploring our World – the new Museum has an important role to play in relating Western Australia and its people to the world, while presenting the world to WA. WA’s increasingly diverse population and its global trading position mean that the Museum has an important part to play in cultural diplomacy.

In developing the ideas and possibilities for the exhibitions, galleries, experiences and programs that will articulate these themes, the WA Museum will be continuing and expanding its ongoing dialogue with our community, to encourage participation in the development of key storylines.

Meanwhile if the WA Museum is truly to represent its stakeholders and user groups, its redevelopment must be accomplished for, with, and by its users.

Over the nine years since the Francis Street closure, museum and cultural practices have continued to develop vigorously. The opportunities to benefit from

12 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

WA’s state museum redevelopment receives huge backing from government

top: middle: bottom: left: right:

seven further years of experience and the evaluation of museum developments elsewhere must not be wasted.

Everyone who has been involved – and will be involved – with the WA Museum’s redevelopment should be intensely proud. Not only will this be, arguably, the most ambitious museum development in the southern hemisphere at the present time. It will also represent a significant moment in the history of the State of Western Australia.

With respect to this unique potential, the personal commitment of Western Australia’s Minister for

Culture and the Arts, the Hon. John Day, and its Premier, the Hon. Colin Barnett, have been critical in developing the project’s scope and long-range vision.

The Minister, in particular, has been tireless in his support for the project.

The challenge now for the WA Museum is to create a museum and constellation of cultural facilities worthy of this great State. In a sense, the hard but exciting work is only just beginning! [ ]

above:

Cultural Centre circa 1985 © State Library of Western Australia

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 13

32,000 year old shell beads from Mandu Mandu, Near Exmouth © WA Museum

clockwise from left

Diver with a leafy seadragon © WA Museum Silver Lake Operations #1, Lake Lefroy, WA, 2007 © Edward Burtynsky and WA Museum The Blue Whale being craned into the Francis Street building in 2003 © WA Museum The Blue Whale as it was displayed in the former Francis Street building © WA Museum

Alec Coles OBE is Chief Executive Officer of the WA Museum.

He was appointed to his position at the WA Museum in 2010 and arrived in Perth in March of that year, having previously headed the Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums in north east England for eight years, steering the organisation through a substantial redevelopment, including prioritisation of audience engagement with cultural resources and collections.

During this time he was also lead officer of the North East Regional Museums Hub under the UK Museums, Libraries and Archives Council’s Renaissance program.

Citation for this article: Alec Coles, ‘A new museum for Western Australia’, Museums Australia Magazine, 20 (4), Museums Australia, Canberra, May 2012, pp. 10 – 13.

14 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

35th Anniversary of International Museum Day

Museums Australia celebrates International Museum Day, 18 May 2012 right:

Carol Cartwright (President of MA(ACT)) addresses the media in the Hall at the National Museum of Australia on International Museum Day. Photo: National Museum of Australia.

A

fter MA’s AGM on 17 May, when Andrew Sayers, Director of the National Museum of Australia, was announced as the new President of Museums Australia, MA’s new President engaged with various media the next day about the importance of the museums sector’s contribution to a broad range of educational, cultural and social development goals in creating a vibrant, strong society. He highlighted the importance of 18 May each year, when the museums sector internationally celebrates International Museum Day. Every year since 1977, International Museum Day, with a theme each year decided by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), has been organised worldwide on or surrounding 18 May. International Museum Day is an occasion to raise awareness of the importance of the resources and activities of museums in their public focus and commitment to the development of society. This annual special day for museums is growing everstronger in its expression internationally, with almost 30,000 museums organising activities in more than 100 countries around the world.

The ICOM Advisory Committee, meeting annually in June in Paris (and incorporating the Chairs of ICOM’s National and International Committees, together with its Affiliated Organisations), selects a particular theme each year for the next year’s International Museum Day. The events surrounding International Museum Day then fan out in a huge variety of activities and celebrations that give life to ICOM’s mission of promoting cultural diversity as underpinning the work of museums across the world.

The steadily increasing popularity and impact of this event has stimulated numerous ways of celebrating the theme and its manifestations each year in May - which last a day, a weekend, a week or even a month in some countries. International Museum Day is taken especially seriously in many countries of the Asia Pacific region, which in some cases target their national conferences to celebrate this day and its associated expressions annually.

ICOM has highlighted the ideas behind its 2012 theme, Museums in a Changing World: New Challenges, New Inspirations, as follows:

Today, the world is changing faster than ever. New technology delivers new ideas, gigabytes of information, news of an increasingly unstable climate, and all activities are impacted by proliferating social media.

Modern museums must compete to maintain an audible voice against the feverish pace of the surrounding world. Museums in a Changing World, the IMD2012 theme, provides a recognition that institutions are faced with interpreting and interacting with a broad cross-section of social groups in a field of contemporary cultural expression that is becoming increasingly fluid. Each museum may face a unique set of goals, interests and audiences. However the necessity to thrive in the face of these changes is something that binds all institutions, large and small. Thus, IMD2012 is as much about museums growing and shaping their future, as it is about displaying and interpreting a variety of current issues such as the effects of climate change or the rising impact on cultural expression and heritage of new electronic media proliferating in their effects exponentially.

Andrew Sayers, as Director of the National Museum of Australia in addition to his becoming President of Museums Australia, stressed that MA’s national focus is on the role of museums in imagining and shaping the future, particularly in dealing with significant issues such as climate change, engagement with new media and museums’ increasingly diverse delivery of programs that demonstrate their capacities not only for the care and interpretation of heritage but also to act as valuable resources for social development.

He stressed that while many of the members of Museums Australia work at the national and major institutions in capital cities, others – often volunteers – staff tiny, far-flung museums and galleries from Gladstone to Albany.

Regional and community-located museums are important partners in the planning for digital connectivity and cultural access to high speed broadband.

The new national education curriculum presents special opportunities for life-long learning habits to be formed through access to the national cultural and scientific collections.

Also present was Carol Cartwright, President of MA (ACT) as well as Chair of the 2013 MA National Conference Planning Committee. She stressed that Museums Australia’s Conference will be a peak event for the sector, held in Canberra from 17 to 20 May, 2013, as part of the Canberra centenary celebrations: We can expect between 600-700 delegates to the Museums Australia national conference in Canberra to soak up the culture that our city provides and engage in serious discussions about national cultural policy and the workings of the museums industry. []

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 15

Australian Maritime Museum Council’s 2012 Conference (Sydney)

Maritime Museums’ Survey of Heritage Vessels

above:

Kevin Jones

right:

Curator Andy Munns manages the restoration of the Sydney Heritage Fleet steamer, John Oxley. Photo: Jeffrey Mellefont.

Kevin Jones

T

he survey of heritage vessels was the most pressing issue at the Australian Maritime Museum Council’s 2012 conference in Sydney in February this year. More than sixty delegates from maritime museums around Australia met in Sydney’s Darling Harbour, and were hosted generously by Sydney Heritage Fleet and the Australian National Maritime Museum.

The conference delivered a stimulating program, with a clear focus on the smaller organisations that make up the vast majority of Australian museums concerned with maritime history, and hold some our finest collections. It began with presentations from Newcastle Maritime Centre (New South Wales), Queenscliffe Museum (Victoria), and the Lady Denman Museum (Tasmania) on the extensive achievements of small organisations. The national wrap provided a forum for short papers covering news in every state, including the uniquely nautical state, the Council of Inland Rivers.

There were workshops on exhibitions development; on managing archaeological collections; and discussions of the most famous underwater archaeology projects of the last several years.

Sydney Heritage Fleet’s iron barque, the James Craig, carried delegates on a tour of Sydney Harbour, and this 1940s workboat took us to Spectacle Island, where the Royal Australian Navy preserves its

extraordinary collection in a munitions store built in the 1860s.

In maritime museums, the regulation of historic vessels is the issue of the moment. Heritage craft are regulated through a system of surveys whereby boats are licenced to carry passengers or operate commercially. The national survey scope of regulation involves annual inspections to ensure vessels are seaworthy, and meet codes for any vessels’ construction today.

In some states, historic boats are subject to the same survey rules as modern passenger vessels, and that presents a problem. It often means that heritage craft must be substantially modified to accommodate modern safety regulations.

Museums meanwhile have long complained that modern regulations require modifications that change the original fabric of historic craft conserved in their collections, and detract from their heritage values.

Many museums can relay stories whereby surveyors trained to manage modern motor ships have been sent to survey vessels they do not understand – such as iron barques, Murray River paddle wheelers, or steam tugs with riveted iron boilers. There have been cases where proposed modifications by contemporary regulators would also have rendered historic vessels less seaworthy.

Of course, safety is fundamentally important.

However solutions both to the need to ensure safety and the need to preserve the heritage values of vessels

16 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

Australian Maritime Museum Council’s 2012 Conference (Sydney)

right:

Conference delegates visited the Australian Navy’s collection store on Spectacle Island, Sydney, February 2012.

Photo: Jeffrey Mellefont.

do not require compromising one objective for the sake of upholding the other. It is possible to achieve both objectives in an integrated solution and positive outcome from all vantage-points.

While heritage craft are rare today, they once operated as elements of mainstream shipping; they were surveyed, insured, and the evidence is that they provided a broad range of safe transport means overall. Even today, the vast majority (over 85%) of accidents are due to the way vessels are managed, not the way they are built.

New South Wales and South Australia have introduced systems of survey specifically for heritage vessels. These systems begin with a recognition that the best knowledge of historic vessels often rests with heritage organisations, and these bodies place the emphasis on vessel managers to propose solutions. This is accomplished by requiring managers to produce ‘vessel management plans’ that identify any aspects whereby vessels might not meet current safety measures in the universal shipping laws, while proposing positive measures as to how these obstacles can be overcome, and dilemmas between heritage values and currency of operational systems and safety may be resolved.

Such plans look to management solutions rather than engineering solutions, so they focus on the ways a vessel is currently used rather than seeking to alter its construction. Many progressive management solutions can emerge through restricting the waters in which a vessel works today, restricting the hours in which it operates or reviewing the number and skills of its crew.

Such approaches have proved to be effective, and the Australian Maritime Museums Council has been meeting with the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to pursue consultation about how heritage vessels may continue to be used, and make a dynamic contribution to our collective understanding of historical developments within a new national system of survey that is being introduced from 2013.

The Maritime Museums Council has grown substantially over the past four years, with a lively and engaged membership actively discussing shared interests. A constructive approach to the regulation of our vessels is one striking and positive outcome of these ongoing discussions.

Kevin Jones, Director SA Maritime Museum, completed his term as President of the Australian Maritime Museums Council in February 2012, and is succeeded by Alan Edenborough, of the Sydney Heritage Fleet.

Citation for this article: Kevin Jones, ‘Australian Maritime Museum Council’s 2012 Conference (Sydney)’, Museums Australia Magazine, 20 (4), Museums Australia, Canberra, May 2012, pp. 15 – 16.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 17

A new museum in the Northern Territory interprets Darwin’s bombing and its social effects during WW 11

Developing the Defence of Darwin Experience top: middle: bottom: left: right:

Michelle Smith

Introduction

above: top:

Michelle Smith

Visitors using the multimedia elements of the Build Up to War exhibition. Photo: MAGNT.

The Northern Territory has a new museum focusing on the social history of World War II and the Territory’s role in Australia’s defence strategy: the Defence of Darwin Experience.

As the focus of Australia’s newest National Day of Observance, the story of the bombing of Darwin is now part of the new national history curriculum, providing primary learning materials for schools around a key episode of history hitherto unknown by much of the Australian population.

Dedicated to the period 1932 to 1945 – a crucial period in Territory history – the facility opened on 18 February 2012. The $10 million Defence of Darwin Experience (DDE) museum development was undertaken to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the bombing of Darwin, and provide an opportunity for visitors to understand the impact of the war on Darwin and its inhabitants, both civilian and military. The project early established a focus on creating a social history experience, not pursuing the usual emphases of a military museum.

The Defence of Darwin Experience provides visitors

with an immersive, interactive, multimedia experience that extends beyond the physical walls of the precinct ‘hub’ – providing wider access, via a Smartphone app, to heritage sites across the greater Darwin area.

The DDE facility includes the immersive Bombing of Darwin Gallery, and presents iconic objects from the period, along with first-hand accounts of events witnessed, supported by a variety of multimedia presentations to animate context and sensory impact.

History of the project and governance issues In July 2008, the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, the Hon Paul Henderson MLA, announced that East Point Reserve would become the location for the World War II Defence of Darwin Museum, now known as the Defence of Darwin Experience.

Developed to highlight and commemorate the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin in February 1942, the DDE project was designed to foster an increased awareness of civic and other effects of both the aerial bombardment of Darwin and the Territory’s wider involvement in the northern defence of Australia during World War II. The facility was designed foremost to attract locals wanting to learn

18 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

A new museum in the Northern Territory interprets Darwin’s bombing and its social effects during WW 11

below:

Handing over the shell

1. Endnotes

more about this important time in our history, as well as providing a significant new attraction for national and international visitors and increasing the Territory’s wider tourism appeal.

The DDE is located next to the current Darwin Military Museum (which is run by the Royal Australian Artillery Association, NT Branch), and joins with it to form a larger World War II historic precinct at East Point.

Under an agreement with the Northern Territory Government, the DDE facility is operated and managed by the Darwin Military Museum. The Territory, through the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), is responsible for the DDE building, grounds and exhibitions, including the multimedia exhibition and all objects on display.

This governance arrangement means that visitors can move through the precinct, and view the displays and exhibitions offered by both facilities, with the convenience of a single admission price. In reality, visitors who are unaware of previous arrangements would assume that there is only one facility, due to the astute landscaping and construction work undertaken to create a seamless single entity on physical encounter by visitors.

Design and construction The DDE is the result of a collaborative publicprivate partnership, involving Northern Territory government agencies and a variety of private contractors. The building tender was awarded to TCS (QLD Pty Ltd), with the design and construction tender for the multimedia exhibition let to a sub-contractor of TCS, Convergence Design, and various multimedia components created by a further sub-contractor, thepod.

Content development, collection management, and object conservation and installation were undertaken by staff of MAGNT, with assistance provided by other Northern Territory cultural institutions. Major national stakeholders such as the Australian War Memorial, in Canberra, and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs also provided support and resources.

Whilst the project had been ‘on the books’ for some years, with the eventual award of the design and construction tender in March 2011, work began in earnest. In early June 2011 the content development team, Michelle Smith (Senior Curator – Territory History) and Jared Archibald (DDE Project Officer),

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 19

top: middle: bottom: left: right:

above:

Bombing of Darwin Experience gallery. Photo: MAGNT.

began working with the design and multimedia teams: scoping out the narrative and storylines; determining the interpretation methods for each section; and selecting objects that would enhance the narrative and provide a tangible connection to the historical events portrayed.

Valuable support was provided by the staff of the NT Library and the NT Archives Service, particularly in the provision of historical images, oral histories and general research services. The role of the Territory’s Heritage Branch in developing research focused on the military heritage sites, and enhancing the interpretation at those sites, was meanwhile crucial in the creation of the Smartphone app supporting public access.

Already in the early months of 2011, when it was clear that the DDE project was expected to be open in time to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin, all parties took stock of the reality that the entire facility would need to be completed prior to 19 February 2012. This meant that the timeline for all content development, graphic production, display construction, multimedia development, object

conservation, mount construction and installation – in short, the entirety of the museum fit-out – would be condensed to a radically hectic eight months of concerted work by many parties and agencies.

One of the early challenges was the inclusion of ‘real’ objects. Prior to the involvement of MAGNT, the governing design concept had been that of an interpretive centre relying solely on technology and graphics to convey the narrative.

However with the involvement of MAGNT staff, and in discussion with design contractors, it became obvious that the inclusion of key objects would be essential to enhance any vivid storytelling. Meanwhile due to the tight time-frame, some major rescheduling by the MAGNT Conservation and Collection Management team was required to meet the needs of the new facility. To manage the large number of objects included in the project’s overall design concept, a contract Conservator (Carolyn McLennan) was engaged to assist with the conservation work and ensure that all objects would be appropriately conserved and prepared for display on schedule.

Investigations into the MAGNT collection proved

20 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

A new museum in the Northern Territory interprets Darwin’s bombing and its social effects during WW 11

top: middle: bottom: left: right:

above:

Guests at the opening of the Defence of Darwin Experience gathering around the Interactive Table. Photo: MAGNT. right: Character card - John Cubilo.

Photo: MAGNT.

exciting. After years of commemorative events, MAGNT has amassed a quality collection of truly iconic objects, with great potential to enliven the narrative finally presented. Other objects were loaned from private individuals in Darwin and from the neighbouring Darwin Military Museum – the organisation that would become an important partner in the future management of the DDE. Swift negotiations were held with the Australian War Memorial, to negotiate the loan of some additional key objects as well as to gain access to the Memorial’s considerable image resources.

Complicating this exhibition production timeline was the construction of the new building. After lengthy community consultations the site location was finalised in early 2011, with the construction tender awarded in March 2011, and the first sod turned on 10 June 2011.

It was imperative that a clear understanding of the exhibition fit-out should be achieved, to ensure that the new building was appropriately scoped in its physical aspects, although work on the content development could not commence until June 14.

Fortunately a close working relationship between all key stakeholders ensured that all the needs of the fitout could be met.

Some difficulties arose with air-conditioning and climate control, when it was determined that the unit to be purchased would have to be custom-made in Europe and shipped to Australia. When the initial decision to purchase the unit was made, the company was manufacturing units on a regular basis and they were available ‘off the shelf’. After the onset of the global financial crisis in 2010, however, this situation changed to custom-made orders only – and so we unwittingly became a secondary ‘victim’ of the GFC! A nagging concern for MAGNT staff was the fear that the climate control of the new building might not ‘settle’ in sufficient time for us to install the objects.

While many of the objects were quite robust, there were a number of more delicate items – such as a silk aviation map, documents, medals and a leather pilot’s helmet – which needed careful handling. Scheduling the installation of these items was delayed until a week’s worth of thermo-hydrograph readings proved that the climate within the facility was stabilising – no mean feat in the midst of a Darwin wet season.

In fine museum tradition, Carolyn McLennan (Conservation) and Jared Archibald (now back in Collection Management after the rigours of content development) were installing objects right up to the day before opening.

A gateway to Darwin and the NT The Defence of Darwin Experience is not merely a facility. It provides a gateway to other places of heritage significance around Darwin, including nine World War II military heritage sites. Visitors can download self-guided multimedia tours incorporating still images, movie footage, maps and documentation of various facilities, to gain an appreciation of the role and importance of these sites. (The free Smartphone app can be downloaded at www.defenceofdarwin. nt.gov.au; click on Military Heritage Sites to find the iStore and Google Play Store icons.)

There are many more sites of World War II significance across the Northern Territory, and it is hoped

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 21

that in future, further apps will be developed to extend the multimedia experience now achieved in Darwin at the East Point Reserve complex.

The exhibitions As mentioned earlier, the aim of the Defence of Darwin Experience was to produce a vivid encounter with key events in Darwin’s social history, rather than emulate the environment of a military museum similar to the one located alongside the DDE. However the precinct ultimately created now encompasses two complementary organisations, together providing an enhanced and integrated experience for diverse visitors.

A walk through the DDE leads visitors to experience the following story-lines: • life in Darwin prior to the War; • the build-up to war, and its effects on the infrastructure and social life of the town; • the impact of the attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941; • the events surrounding the first bombing of Darwin, 19 February 1942; and • the aftermath of the first Japanese aerial attack and subsequent counter-offensive activities based in the Top End. Each visitor to the DDE receives a ‘character card’ with an image of a real person who was in Darwin during World War II. There are 41 characters represented throughout the displays. The diversity amongst the characters is very broad, giving visitors a sense of the range of people living in Darwin and the surrounding regions who were affected by the events of World War II. The first-hand accounts of life in Darwin before, during and after the first bombing of the town lend immediacy to the events of February 1942.

An unexpected bonus in public engagement has been the use of the character cards by school groups.

Teachers have urged their students to seek out all information relevant to each character across the exhibitions, and to report back to their classes. Some teachers have introduced an element of role-playing into the reporting activity.

The Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University has been contracted to produce a range of web-based education resources based on the DDE exhibitions and the nine heritage sites included on the Smartphone app. These resources will become available in July 2012. Meanwhile the use of the character cards by teachers has been widely noted, and elements of this feature will also be included in the teaching resources under development. In the first six weeks of operation, more than 700 school students visited the DDE at its East Point Reserve site.

Using selected ‘characters’ to connect objects with events and individuals has been important in providing a strong social history focus. While this facility is ostensibly about World War II, there is very little

extant weaponry in fact, and those pieces that are on display are placed within a social history context.

For example, a Webley handgun is presented within the ‘Build-up to War’ section. The gun is representative of an oral history story told by John Cassidy, a marine engineer with the Northern Territory Patrol Service. The influx of construction crews into preWar Darwin had John nervous about leaving his wife alone at home while he was out on patrol. He therefore made sure she had a loaded Webley under her pillow at night when he was away. It had to be loaded, in his view, despite all risks – he couldn’t see any sense in it not being loaded!

Indigenous experience Presenting Indigenous perspectives across the exhibitions proved a challenge. The well-documented story of Tiwi Islander Matthias Ulungura capturing the first Japanese prisoner of war on Australian soil was an obvious inclusion, and both Matthias and his prisoner, Hajime Toyoshima, became key characters in narrative recapture to convey the Experience vividly for audiences today.

Less well known were the stories of the first Aboriginal enlistees in the Australian Army. The first Aboriginals in the Northern Territory to officially join the army did so in August and September of 1939. These approximately fifty men, described as ‘part-Aborigine’ in military documents, required special authorisation by the Minister for Defence to enlist in the militia, because at the time, Aboriginal eligibility for Australian defence-forces enlistment was proscribed.

We were fortunate to track down the descendants of a number of these Aboriginal men. However finding original photographs was complicated by the ravages of the Darwin climate, in particular the destructive impact on historical records of Cyclone Tracy in 1974. However the families of William McLennan, and brothers Samuel and Jimma Fejo, were finally able to find images of their men in their service uniforms. For the younger members of the family today, visiting the DDE and seeing images of their great grandfathers on display as proud members of the Australian Army during the War was an almost overwhelming experience.

Further research work is being undertaken in this important area of Australian social history, and a number of other Indigenous families are coming forward with images and documentation that enlarge our picture of Indigenous contributions to the War effort in the north of Australia. In addition, the DDE has encouraged Indigenous families to contribute to StoryShare, in order to capture stories that often remain within family and community conversations as strands of oral tradition, but are not more broadly included in Territory or ‘national’ history-telling.

22 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

A new museum in the Northern Territory interprets Darwin’s bombing and its social effects during WW 11

The multimedia presentations Each exhibition space within the new museum facility includes objects, graphics and multimedia elements. Overall, seventeen multimedia presentations have been created for the space, producing a content-rich environment. The multimedia applications range from very simple to the highly complex.

In ‘Darwin – Frontier Town’, visitors are greeted by huge rolling images on the exhibition wall, with short oral history extracts linking the images to the lifestyle of the town. In contrast, the ‘Bombing of Darwin Gallery’ is a multi-sensory ‘museum theatre’ experience comprising eight metres of electronic glass, a booming soundtrack and extraordinary computergenerated graphics that bring to shocking and mesmerising life the events of 19 February 1942.

While the theatrical presentation of multiple events and action simultaneously provides the emotional core of the Defence of Darwin Experience, the Bombing of Darwin Interactive Table provides the documentary centre-piece that relays the facts and figures surrounding 19 February 1942. The amazingly detailed 1941 aerial map of Darwin is presented as ‘wallpaper’ extending behind the stories of 28 characters living and working in and around Darwin on that fateful day in 1942, when Darwin was suddenly besieged by the onslaught of Japanese air attacks.

All characters tell visitors in their own words where they were and what happened to them at the time.

An image of each character and their location on the map appears, along with further text and images that appear on one of the four individual support screens.

The Defence of Darwin Experience draws upon new narrative resources and technologies that today configure a much more richly entextured landscape of public history presentations in museums. The real-life experiences of individuals and diverse social groups, told through oral history and from a variety of perspectives, connect contemporary visitors to events seven decades past, which still have a vital place in Top End social history today – and these events are now being re-absorbed by mainstream Australian history for their wider significance in national understanding of our historical relations in the Asia-Pacific region.

An example of the potency of the oral history archive can be found in the account of Bruce Acland, who worked with Civil Aeradio at the Parap Airport in 1942.

I heard a roar of an aircraft and a row of holes appeared just above my head. I was lagging behind – and the row of five holes – I think it was five – I did come back later to check up – sort of put the speed of lightning into my loins. I rushed up and fell into a slit trench.

Bruce Acland, oral history archive for Defence of Darwin Experience.

Condensing multiple information sources and formats into an integrated experience The numerous multimedia elements across the DDE museum facility, as finally realised, enable large amounts of technical information to be provided simply and directly, using basic touch-screen technology. For example, the complexity of the Japanese attack plan, battle fleet, aircraft and ordnance, was able to be collated and presented in a program with a deceptively simple interface. Most importantly it gives visitors the choice of either dipping straight into a top level of narrative information or delving further into associated technical details.

An exciting attraction at the DDE is ‘StoryShare’: a dedicated space that provides visitors with the opportunity to relate their own stories in a digital format, using a simple touch-screen interface. Once a story is recorded, it becomes a part of the cumulative Experience, available to other visitors through the StoryShare touch-screens. This element was incorporated specifically to facilitate the many requests to the Northern Territory Government made by people wishing to ‘tell my story’ – particularly during each annual commemoration of the bombing of Darwin.

The simplicity of the StoryShare facility makes it accessible to all age groups. During the week after the opening of the DDE in February 2012, more than thirty stories were collated and will soon enrich the StoryShare system, many recorded by elderly veterans or civilians with direct connections to Darwin during World War II.

The temporary exhibitions space In order to manage the numerous stories that deserve presentation within the Defence of Darwin Experience, a small temporary space has been created.

The exhibitions in this space will change once a year, in alignment with the annual commemoration of the bombing of Darwin. Currently the space highlights the extraordinary engineering feat that was the antisubmarine boom net. Designed to exclude enemy submarines from Darwin Harbour, the net ran from Dudley Point to West Point, a distance of 6.25 km, and was the longest unbroken floating net of its kind laid in Australia during World War II.

Our sponsors and their direct assistance I would like to highlight the tangible contributions of the two major foundation sponsors of the Defence of Darwin Experience. Engineers Australia (NT Branch) provided generous sponsorship that supported a range of exhibitions focusing on the importance of engineering in the creation of military and civilian infrastructure. In addition, they supported the creation of the Smartphone app and the production of the web-based education resources.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 23

top: middle: bottom: left: right:

above:

Boom buoy

The Department of Veterans’ Affairs meanwhile provided a large grant to support the development of digital interpretation at the DDE, enabling the creation of digital stories based on more extensive oral history interviews, both in 2012 and ongoing. Oral history interviews continue to be conducted with civilian and military veterans whose stories surrounding the bombing of Darwin have never been extensively documented previously.

Considering the age of these individuals, it is vital that this ongoing work is advanced as soon as possible.

The resulting interviews and transcripts will be lodged with both the NT Archives Service and the Australians at War Film Archive website managed by DVA, and resulting digital stories will be accessed through the StoryShare touch-screens at the DDE.

Reviewing the new museum facility in Darwin and its 2012 launch In the opening week, the Defence of Darwin Experience attracted between 300 and 400 visitors a day. Amongst them were 210 veterans and their families, special guests of the City of Darwin, each with a story to tell about their time in the Top End. Many left a story with StoryShare; others told us that the theatre production ‘wasn’t loud enough’, despite the fact that it reverberates through the whole building; and all told us that the DDE was a magnificent tribute to the men, women and children who were affected by the events in Darwin during World War II. Occasionally there were tears, more often laughter, as veterans compared notes.

Mostly there was quiet reflection as visitors explored the exhibitions, often in the company of family and friends.

As the project curator, it was this aspect of the project that

affected me most deeply. It confirmed that the team had managed to find the right balance: between the facts and figures versus the emotion; and between the incorporation of multimedia versus traditional reliance on the proven power of objects and interpretive texts.

Arthur Wellington was killed in the Post Office on 19 February 1942. The previous day he had written a letter to his family telling them not to worry about any impending attack. His words feature in the beginning of the Bombing of Darwin Gallery theatre production.

Unsignalled to us, Arthur’s daughter Sue visited the facility three days after it opened. When she came out of the theatre in tears, I was afraid her response might be an indication that we had gone too far – that the experience aroused was perhaps too real; too emotionally charged.

Sue sat for a moment, wept a little longer, and then turned to me as the siren sounded for the next showing: ‘It was beautiful, to hear my father’s words. I’m going in to see it again.’ [] Michelle Smith is Senior Curator (Territory History) within the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT), and has held the position since January 2010. She is based in Alice Springs at the southern campus of MAGNT, the Museum of Central Australia. To undertake the content development for the Defence of Darwin Experience she relocated to Darwin for more than five months during the latter half of 2011. Michelle has worked in museums across Australia for nearly twenty years, including organisations in South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory. A long-time supporter of Museums Australia, within six months of arriving in the Northern Territory she became President of the NT branch of MA. Citation for this article: Michelle Smith, ‘Developing the Defence of Darwin Experience’, Museums Australia Magazine, 20 (4), Museums Australia, Canberra, May 2012, pp. 17–23.

24 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

A museum making a unique contribution to the museums sector in Australia

The Architecture Museum, School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia

Christine Garnaut and Julie Collins

top:

Christine Garnaut

above: right:

Julie Collins

Student work by Russell Ellis, 1932, Ellis collection.

After World War 11, rising popular, professional and academic interest in the history of architecture in Australia was a major impetus for the initiation of collections of architectural records. Architectural history was offered in architecture and fine arts programs in Australian universities increasingly from the 1960s, and several academics associated with teaching the subject were instrumental in collecting architectural records in the belief that in the future, ‘demand for this source material will certainly increase’.

Much has been achieved in recent decades. In 2012, architectural records are now held in various institutions in Australia, and are considered as contributing to the ‘distributed national collection’. Governmentfunded archives retain items produced by state and Commonwealth government architects, while private practitioners’ records survive in various locations, including within the national, state and university library collections, as well as in local government collections and archives managed by special-interest groups. Some architectural firms keep their own records, and some make these available publicly.

On an international comparison, Australia unusually has as yet only one dedicated architecture museum.

It is located in the School of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of South Australia’s (UniSA) City West campus in Adelaide.

Architecture museums and similar bodies were well-established, popular cultural institutions in Europe and North America throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The earliest independent museum of architecture opened in Moscow in 1945, as the Museum of Russian Architecture, later the Schusev Museum. The Finnish Museum of Architecture followed in Helsinki in 1956, and others were spawned elsewhere over the next two decades.

In 1979, the International Confederation of Architectural Museums (icam) was formed. The present icam President, Dietmar Steiner, describes the architecture museum as ‘a centre of knowledge on

architecture … a place of memory, an institution for [research] mediation and education’.

UniSA’s Architecture Museum in Adelaide has developed along these international lines and is a thriving and growing research hub for Australian investigation of the records of architects and their contributions to cultural history and heritage. The Architecture Museum is dedicated to preserving ‘the memory’, in the form of paper records, of twentieth-century architects practising in South Australia; to contributing new knowledge about the history of architecture and

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 25

the built environment locally, nationally and internationally through research projects, publications and exhibitions; and to mediating this knowledge for educational purposes in the broadest sense.

The Architecture Museum at UniSA holds a nationally unique research collection built up since the 1970s. Adelaide-based but US-educated architect and architectural historian, Donald Leslie Johnson, who was familiar with the presence and impact of architectural museums abroad, originated the collection.

He built it up in accordance with a general collecting

strategy underpinned by the intent to rescue and preserve invaluable ‘working records’ that were generally not preserved but often circumstantially disposed of by architects over years of prolonged professional practice.

Johnson took the view that the material gathered would eventually constitute a unique resource for research scholars. He accepted all types of items – drawings, specifications, accounts, correspondence, photographs, notebooks and diaries, press clippings and drawing equipment – on the basis that drawings

26 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

A museum making a unique contribution to the museums sector in Australia

below: ‘Designing for Communities: the civic architecture of Russell & Yelland’ exhibition 2011. Photo: Rosie Boehm Photography.

and their related records would assist future researchers in ‘understanding the conception and practice of both the individual architect and of the [context of the] architecture profession generally at [the] time’.

Additionally, Johnson assembled a library of books, journals, trade brochures and catalogues ‘to aid study and research’ into architectural practice and history.

The provenance of donations to the collection ranged from prominent South Australian-based, privately practising architects to material surviving about the work of little-known figures. Firms – the multi-sided enterprise of a corporate professional practice – were also represented.

Johnson secured a physically appropriate space for the collection to be housed, where items could be stored under archival conditions and a part-time archivist be employed to organise and accession the records. Johnson expanded the collection over about fifteen years, and was able to generate funds for research projects and occasional exhibitions.

In 1990, Donald Johnson donated the entire collection he had nurtured – which had grown to about 30,000 items – to the School of the Built Environment at the South Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT – later UniSA). SAIT/UniSA continued the work of accessioning the collection, then known as the Architecture Archive, and eventually made it available to the public.

In early 2005, the Architecture Archive was moved to its current location, re-housing it at last in a permanent home in a purpose-designed space. The facility was re-launched as the Architecture Museum, with a remit to manage, enhance and expose the museum collection to a wider audience; to promote broad engagement with its contents; to develop and champion its research capacity; and to expand its use by academic, professional and community researchers.

The new museum was also charged with the task of generating its own research program and outcomes.

The Architecture Museum in Adelaide now holds more than 200,000 items, including approximately 25,000 drawings and a 2,500-volume library. Its Collection Policy has built upon and evolved from the

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 27

original strategy adopted by Donald Johnson. The focus is on drawings (for example, plans, elevations, sections, perspectives) and related records produced

by South-Australian based architects in private practice, predominantly from the period circa 1910 to 1980.

The holdings do, however, include some nineteenthcentury records, together with a substantial special collection of antique British and European architectural prints and engravings. The core of the library continues to be as Johnson established it: encompassing books, monographs, journals, and trade catalogues and brochures. However it has been broadened to include publications on South Australia’s history – to assist researchers’ understanding of the context in which projects were created – as well as books donated in conjunction with the special collection of prints and engravings.

The Architecture Museum promotes and fosters research into architectural and built environment history, and is visited – in person and virtually – by a wide variety of individuals, ranging from academic to professional and community circles. The Australian National Data Service funded project (2010 – 2011) ‘Taking Australian Architectural and Built Environment Records into the Commons’, which the Architecture Museum carried out in conjunction with the University of South Australia Library, has recently enabled the collections to be promoted more widely, now rendering them more readily discoverable and accessible through Research Data Australia for national researchers.

Research derived from projects in the Museum is used in a range of ways – for example, by students in generating theses and design projects, as well as in traditional research outputs such as academic papers, and in the preparation of exhibitions. Through a partnership with the South Australian Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) – formerly Department for Environment and Heritage (DEH) – the Architecture Museum now offers the annual DENR SA Built Heritage Research Fellowship.

Fellows research topics ranging from projects on individual architects to period-style studies

28 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

A museum making a unique contribution to the museums sector in Australia

right:

A selection of items from the Architecture Museum’s collection. Photo: Julie Collins.

or decisive movements such as Art Deco. Fellows work with the Museum’s staff to produce a monograph based on their research, while also being targeted to reach a broad audience. As the result of an earlier collaboration with DEH, an Architecture Museum-based research team has prepared scholarly biographies of South Australian architects that are now available via the online database, Architects of South Australia: www.architectsdatabase.unisa.eu.au.

The Museum works extensively with internal and external partners to research and mount exhibitions.

Examples include ‘Suburban Dreams’: House and Home in Adelaide 1945-1965, a collaboration with History SA; and Designing for Communities: the Civic Architecture of Russell & Yelland Architects (2011), produced with the support of the South Australian practice, Russell & Yelland Architects, and UniSA’s Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre.

With the support of state government funding through Arts SA, the Architecture Museum has meanwhile commissioned an independent curator and seven artists, respectively, to curate and create new works for the forthcoming exhibition, Build me a city.

The Australian Experimental Art Foundation (aeaf ), Adelaide, is a partner in this project.

The exhibition will be held in the aeaf gallery in late 2012, in conjunction with PLACE, an architectural festival initiated by the Australian Institute of

Architects (SA Chapter). In this cross-over project bridging the divisions that often separate the work of architects from their contemporary artist peers – and failure to capture the interconnections that often flourish across related domains – the artists’ works in Build me a city will be inspired by many items held in the Architecture Museum’s collections.

The Architecture Museum is open Monday to Wednesday, 10 am–4 pm. For contact details and further information about the Museum’s collection, publications and program of activities, see: http:// www.unisa.edu.au/artarchitecturedesign/architecturemuseum/default.asp [ ] Christine Garnaut is Associate Professor in Planning and Architectural History, and Director of the Architecture Museum in the School of Art, Architecture and Design, at the University of South Australia. <christine.garnaut@unisa.edu. au>. Julie Collins is Collections Manager at the Architecture Museum in the School of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of South Australia.

Citation for this article: Christine Garnaut and Julie Collins, ‘The Architecture Museum, School of Art, Architecture and Design, University of South Australia’, Museums Australia Magazine, 20 (4), Museums Australia, Canberra, May 2012, pp. 24–28.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 29

An ARC Linkage Project researches lessons from the past, transforming the present

A new national research project: Australian Art Exhibitions 1968–2009: a generation of cultural transformation

left: Jade Suit of Princess Tou Wan being packed at the Museum of Chinese History, Beijing, December 1976. Seated at rear: Leon Paroissien, Director of the Visual Arts Board (Australia Council), and (C, on his left), curator Jen Chang-tai, heading the Work Party on the Chinese side.

An ABC camera-man is shooting film for a 1977 ABC documentary on China, directed by Brian Adams.

Joanna Mendelssohn

M

useums Australia is an institutional partner in a significant national research project recently awarded an Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant, to research the changing nature of exhibitions of Australian art over a period of four decades.

The project rationale includes the following description of the focus and implications of the investigation, in which a consortium of universities, art museums, academics and curatorial expertise will be harnessed in a uniquely collaborative venture drawing together academic and specialist knowledge resident in the state and National galleries:

The years 1968 to 2009 witnessed a transformation in the way Australians saw the art of their country.

This project investigates the impact of increased funding (government and private) and new scholarship on the curating of art exhibitions, and traces the reconfiguration of Australia’s art history that took place in exhibitions during this period.

The framing years, 1968 to 2009, were chosen with care. 1968, one of the revolutionary years of the twentieth century, was the year that the National Gallery of Victoria opened its new building in St Kilda Road, designed by Roy Grounds, with the novel incorporation of escalators into a museum building. In addition to the impressive new suite of galleries housing Victoria’s justly famous collections, the opening exhibition, in a purpose-designed temporary exhibitions space, was pitched to focus on the present rather than the past.

The Field (curated by the late John Stringer and Brian Finemore), presented a controlled curatorial vision of what was seen to be the best of contemporary Australian art. The design and focus of the exhibition served to place Australia in a particular context, but with a strong emphasis at the time on the power of American post-War art and its then-overarching status internationally.

1968 was also the year that the University of Sydney began teaching art history to undergraduate students in the new Power Institute. It wasn’t the first art history degree in the country, however – that honour belongs to the University of Melbourne, through the founding of the Herald Chair of Fine Arts in the

30 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

An ARC Linkage Project researches lessons from the past, transforming the present

above:

Culture Warriors: Indigenous Art Triennial. Exhibition catalogue for the first National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, 2007 & 2009.

late 1940s at the initiative of NGV Chairman, Keith Murdoch.

However the late-twentieth century growth of university-educated curators in all fields of museum endeavour is also part of the narrative of changing ways of ‘seeing’ Australian art and visual culture by means of objects presented in temporary exhibitions.

Meanwhile longer-term public displays drawn from permanent collections were themselves reconfigured through the impact of new research and interpretive work steadily emerging through the variety and increased momentum of exhibitions mounted for ever-widening public attendance and shifting perceptions of national self-interpretation about our cultural origins and evolving character, including a more

self-conscious location within the Asia-Pacific region.

Together these changes were reshaping – and representing for an expanding public’s absorption – significantly new perceptions of our cultural development and its ever more diverse present and future potential.

The period under scrutiny in this research project ends in 2009, when the National Gallery of Australia took Culture Warriors, the first National Indigenous Art Triennial, to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington. This was an event that was far from a reprise of Dreamings, the Bicentennial exhibition that showed the beauty and subtlety of Aboriginal culture to audiences at the Asia Society Galleries in New York in 1988.

Culture Warriors was a proclamation that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, in all its forms, could both encompass and itself redefine the breadth and evolving character of Australian visual culture today.

Significantly, the forebears of these artists and their art would not have been considered ‘contemporary’, ‘innovative’, or even directly connected to mainstream culture in 1968.

The degree to which such shifts in perception have occurred over the last two decades, since the Dreamings exhibition was sent abroad as a Bicentennial ambassador to the USA in 1988, is itself a measure of the extent of change in appraisals of our cultural origins and possible destinies achieved in Australian self-understanding since the pioneering years of change launched through the pulse of exhibitions development that arose in the 1970s.

However the transformation of Australian exhibition practice is more than a simple narrative of the growth of the scholarly discipline of art history or the related professional development of curatorship. An analysis of the changes that have taken place in the interpretation and projection of our visual arts, through a steady production of temporary and travelling exhibitions over four decades, enables many insights into the shifts in perception that have occurred in the period as to what it means to be ‘Australian’.

In addition to curatorship and expanding exhibitions development, some striking changes have occurred in the presentation and marketing of exhibitions, as well as in the more dramatic character of their physical installation and visitor engagement since the 1970s. The upsurge of new skills-development, acquisition of expertise that previously was the preserve of the private and corporate sector, and the creation inside museums of whole departments associated with marketing, fundraising and promotional activities, were distinguishing changes (first in art museums) that arose around the need to present ‘blockbuster’ exhibitions to a newly interested and suddenly expanding public in the 1970s,

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 31

right:

Installation view, showing large Papunya paintings by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri, in Australian Perspecta 1981 (65 artists, curated by Bernice Murphy), Art Gallery of New South Wales, May–June 1981.

This was the first occasion when acrylic paintings from Papunya were strongly presented in a central position, as ‘contemporary Australian art’, in a large survey exhibition by an Australian state gallery.

far right:

Large Tjingari cycle painting (acrylic on canvas, by five Pintubi artists from Papunya, in Australian Perspecta 1981, Art Gallery of New South Wales, May–June 1981 (curator: Bernice Murphy).

with an associated expectation of improved facilities that spurred state governments to support museum rebuilding programs across the country.

Educational provision in museums (historically focused on school education and class visits for particular kinds of guided learning) was also overhauled.

Concepts of self-directed learning supported by new community-focused programs began to study visitors of all ages and explore their learning potential, in a proactive grasp of an infinitely diversified layering of potential audiences for the collections and programs of museums – and their social entitlement to access these resources.

Since the late 1960s, the cluster of what is now called ‘public programs’ has absorbed and displaced the more instruction-based trajectory of what was previously referred to universally as ‘museum education’, with designated staff geared to booked visits by school children.

Today, spearheaded by the outstanding innovations of the Queensland Art Gallery since 1998, and its creation of a whole studio-based gallery – the Children’s Art Centre – involving artists directly, alongside educators, in the stimulation of young learners, a new generation of art museum visitors has grown up in the knowledge that art museums are places where children are especially welcome, and where it is possible at an early age to participate in making and creatively experimenting as well as seeing what has been created by others.

Public programs in museums have meanwhile been extended to a range of new adult communities, including people with disabilities, and there is a greater awareness that whole sections of society may feel themselves excluded from cultural institutions without proactive attention to their needs.

While new types of museum publications have been tailored to more diverse audiences, exhibition catalogues have meanwhile increased in quality and standards of production over recent decades. These are now often major works of front-line scholarship and critical re-evaluation, more substantial in their

lead-times and production values, and more widely available for an extended after-life of exhibitions, both in hard copy and increasingly online – reaching new international as well as national audiences.

However all these changes in presentation may mask what has been the greatest transformation in exhibitions of Australian art: the content of exhibitions themselves, and especially their accompanying scholarship and shifts in critical interpretation underlying their selection, constantly reviewing and recontextualising our own cultural history, as exhibitions bring together works of art into the public domain, in an ongoing visual discussion and exploration of what it may mean to be an Australian in the twenty-first century.

Casting a glance back over the gear-shifts in this whole period, a question may be posed to indicate the significance of the transformation in cultural self-interpretation that our art museums and a variety of public exhibiting galleries have accomplished since the late 1960s. How did it happen that in 1968, Australia’s ‘best face’ to itself was a very ‘masculine’ exhibition of clean lines, bright colours, American-focused abstract works, without any hint of an Indigenous presence? The Field appeared radical in its time – and it was so in its ambitious assertion of recent Australian art in a signature temporary exhibition announcing a new chapter and location of a state gallery in striking new premises on a landmark site.

However an aim of The Field was also to demonstrate, through imitation, that Australia was now a more up-to-date, affiliated player in the big modern (Western) world.

By contrast, two generations later, the exhibition of Indigenous art sent to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington – and curated by an Aboriginal woman – conveyed a wholly different position and subtext for Australian art’s positioning in the world: that Australian culture was now understood as both ancient and modern, and confidently developing various homegrown hybrids of multiple cultural traditions, by which we present our contemporary culture with

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An ARC Linkage Project researches lessons from the past, transforming the present

pride, both to ourselves and to the world.

Because the researchers on this national exhibitions review project have lived through the period under examination, we know these changes did not happen by accident. Some changes – such as the greater representation of women and an increased Indigenous presence – were fought for, aided by various causes espoused through wider social activism in the 1970s, and other aspirations of the times that were carried forward and reconfigured the 1980s, strong enough to maintain their momentum of change through different periods of political leadership thereafter.

In other cases, significant changes occurred because inspirational individuals were appointed to crucial positions at just the right time.

One of the best examples of this tendency was the 1974 appointment of Leon Paroissien as first Director of the Visual Arts Board within the newly configured Australian Council of the Arts (later Australia Council). Paroissien’s vision of what Australia could become, with the stimulus of new resources and a decisive commitment to changes needed, enabled the creation of the federal government’s indemnity program for major exhibitions (for Modern Masters, Manet to Matisse from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1975, and subsequently applied to The Chinese Exhibition in 1977).

This initiative, which has survived through decades of a reconfigured federal government program supporting major temporary exhibitions from abroad, has saved millions of dollars of insurance premiums and enabled the impossible to become the affordable.

Leon Paroissien was also crucial to the transformation and re-launch of the long-standing Australian Gallery Directors Conference (of state directors exclusively) to become the nationally expanded and inclusive Australian Gallery Directors Council (AGDC). From 1976 to 1981 the newly configured AGDC provided the first national exhibitions touring agency, including regional galleries across the country, which provided agency and resources for a blossoming of expertise and innovative exhibitions development for the art museums sector, often incorporating the emerging careers of young curators in regional and rural Australia.

The AGDC uniquely operated both as a touring agency vehicle for the professional development of young curators alongside their senior peers right across the country – including, for example, Ron Radford and John McPhee, who began their careers as young curator-directors in regional institutions (Ron Radford at the Ballarat Regional Gallery in Victoria, and John McPhee at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania).

With new resources for exhibitions seed-funding, and touring coordination through Australia

Council support underpinning the national costsharing network of the AGDC, important historical exhibitions researching new aspects of colonial, nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australian art were able to be mounted.

At the same time an upsurge in exhibitions of contemporary art and artists also fanned out across the country, through a series of new exhibiting spaces, whether in redeveloped facilities in state galleries, in newly founded regional galleries (for example, in Burnie, Wollongong and Rockhampton), or in the dedicated new institutions comprising a national network of artist-run spaces, threaded across all states as independent biennial and other festival- related exhibitions also emerged in a strengthened national staging of contemporary cultural development in this period.

The narratives this project is researching therefore lead to a reconsideration of the extensive reservoir of common good that can be created in particular periods through astutely targeted professional development initiatives, with strong government agency but also devolution and diverse pump-priming programs created for many to take up development opportunities in their own hands.

From the early 1970s onwards, the Visual Arts Board instigated a series of artists’ studios abroad. A newly funded network of artist-run spaces, often linked to associated state-produced art magazines, was stimulated at home. International exhibition exchanges of outstanding cultural material were negotiated on a scale and momentum not previously known. Opportunities for curators and other practitioners to travel and gain experience nationally and internationally proliferated, as never previously imaginable under restrictive state public service boards.

Meanwhile the importation of benchmarking expertise internationally was facilitated through an array of stimulating visitors and international practitioners brought to and fanned out across the country in intensive interstate itineraries. Collectively such ventures, in their cumulative impact through the nascent Visual Arts Board and Craft Board as part of the burgeoning Australia Council, served to raise the bar across so many scenes of art activity and exhibition-making from the early 1970s onwards.

There was also the influential presence of a new, allIndigenous body within the hub of national cultural activity: the Aboriginal Arts Board (as it was first designated) located inside the Australia Council and represented through all its structures. This important new body under an all-Indigenous policy-setting board has contributed its agency for decades in changing the presentation of Aboriginal artists and art in exhibitions for mainstream audiences, with a now decisive record of achievement as the Aboriginal and

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 33

Torres Strait Islander Arts Board we know today.

Changing perceptions of the importance of Aboriginal art is therefore in part another success-story of the Australia Council – especially through the entrepreneurial exhibition programming by its founding Director, Bob Edwards, who tirelessly proselytised the urgent Indigenous community needs and interpretive changes required to assure Indigenous art a better future in Australia, as the baseline of a unique heritage of unparalleled antiquity and continuity.

Meanwhile there were other heroes in this long story of change. Nick Waterlow included Ramingining artists in the 1979 Biennale of Sydney, and ensured that the 200 grave posts composing The Aboriginal Memorial – now a signature ‘welcome’ work in the National Gallery of Australia – would be a focal work of the 1988 Biennale. Bernice Murphy incorporated then-pioneering Papunya paintings by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri and Charlie Tjapangati as innovators in contemporary art in Australian Perspecta 1981 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales – the first state gallery to commit to a recurrent survey of contemporary Australian art.

One of the overarching heroes and stewards of change in the interpretation of Australian art during this long period was Daniel Thomas – recently honoured by the ICOM Australia International Award for individual achievement at the Museums Australia Conference in 2010. The ICOM Award was made for Daniel’s less recognised influence in stimulating international recognition of Australian art over a long period, alongside his overarching influence across the interpretation, curatorship and exhibition of Australian art nationally, as well as exemplary impact on several generations of curators.

The increasing attention by mainstream institutions to presentation of Indigenous exhibitions and permanent displays that arose in the 1970s helped pave the way for later Aboriginal curators, including the ever experimental Djon Mundine, and later Hetti Perkins (at the Art Gallery of New South Wales), Margo Neale (at the Queensland Art Gallery), and Culture Warriors’ own curator, Brenda L Croft (at the National Gallery of Australia, following her first posting at the Western Australian Art Gallery) to overhaul both the presence as well as presentation of Indigenous art in all our major exhibiting institutions.

This pathfinding national research project is already up and running. It is retrieving the threads of institutional life and reviewing how they compose a fabric of change over a decisive period in our national development. It is recording the voices of people who have shaped defining changes in the period under review. It is reopening archives of material scattered in a period of hectic development, in which records were often

not gathered systematically for their future research value, or the pace of change was simply too hectic for back-up and review.

The project is also gathering together a range of disparate historical images of the period, which will help to recreate a much-needed visual record of the background historical processes that configured such a decisive era of change.

This national research project reclaims curators, directors and other staff involved in exhibitions as innovators in a period that created a more richly diversified and nuanced view of what Australia’s visual art and cultural history had been like in the past, and could now be.

Joanna Mendelssohn is Associate Professor and Program Director for Art Administration at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, and (joint) Editor in Chief of Design and Art of Australia Online. Before working at UNSW she was the award winning Art Critic of the Bulletin, and Assistant Director of the Newcastle Region Art Gallery . She is the Chief Investigator in the ARC-funded research project: Australian Art Exhibitions 1968-2009: a generation of cultural transformation. The other investigators are: Catherine De Lorenzo (UNSW), Catherine Speck (University of Adelaide), Alison Inglis (University of Melbourne), Bernice Murphy (Museums Australia), Frances Lindsay (National Gallery of Victoria), Simon Elliott (National Gallery of Australia), and Steven Miller (Art Gallery of New South Wales).

The partner institutions lend invaluable support to the project through their resources, historical records and collective memory, as well as directly supportive professional and sectoral networks extending across the country. The partner institutions are: Museums Australia, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Art Gallery of South Australia. The university partners meanwhile are the University of New South Wales, the University of Adelaide, and the University of Melbourne.

Citation for this text: Joanna Mendelssohn, ‘A new national research project: Australian Art Exhibitions 1968–2009: a generation of cultural transformation’, Museums Australia Magazine, 20 (4), Museums Australia, Canberra, May 2012, pp.29 -33.

34 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012

Book review: Museums in the Material World

Museums in the Material World (ed. Simon J Knell; London, Routledge, 2007, 374 pages).

Darryl McIntyre

M

useums in the Material world comprises four parts.

Part one addresses the objective world and includes a series of excellent papers relating to the value of natural history collections in Latin American conservation by Paisley S Cato. This chapter sets out the development of a systematics collection; then addresses the value of collections in conservation; environmental assessment and education; and provides a detailed listing of references. The following chapter by Welton Lee, Bruce Bell, and John Sutton provides a description of voucher specimens; addresses the selection of a repository for voucher specimens; and includes a list of references.

Elizabet Stavenow-Hidemark’s chapter takes up the subject of a monograph she published in 1985, Home Thoughts from Abroad, and provides an evaluation of the SAMDOK Homes Pool, Stockholm. The chapter includes five research projects, described and

analysed in detail: on the Halsinglands Museum, 1978; the Nordiska Museet, 1979; Jamtlands Lans Museum (Jamtli History Land, Ostersund), 1980; Goteborg Historika Museum, 1981-82; and Kulturen Lund, 1983 – all of these institutions located in Sweden.

The chapter finally provides an analysis of collecting objects; a consideration of thematic displays, including six criteria associated with thematic displays; and a good concluding list of references.

Barbara E Frank’s chapter addresses ceramics as testaments of the past, with a major focus on African collections (ceramics; leatherworking traditions in Mali). The chapter provides a very comprehensive and detailed description of Barbara E Frank’s work in the area of ceramic collections in Africa.

David Carrier’s chapter deals with connoisseurship and its application in European museums in the twentieth century. It provides a searching analysis of connoisseurship and its application in various European museums, which could serve as a model for museums in Australia and New Zealand. Michael Shanks’ and Christopher Tilley’s chapter addresses material culture, including an analysis of culture types; cultures and cognition; meaning and artifact types; artifact classification; cognition and the past; styles and function; history, structure and material culture; material culture, language and practice; and finally, issues underlying the studying of material culture. The chapter would be very useful to students undertaking courses in museum studies, and it includes a useful conclusion together with a very comprehensive list of references.

Part Two of Museums in the Material World, addressing the subjective world of museum practices, incorporates extracts from papers given at American Association of Museums conferences., This second part of the anthology has a lead article by the late Stephen Weil on providing a new foundation for museum practice: characterised as ‘The American art museum reconceived’. This section provides a detailed analysis of American art museums, dealing with issues of change and considering how museums might be reconceived in the twenty-first century.

Art historian Donald Preziosi’s chapter addresses the art of art history, and includes sections on museology and museography, as well as a list of references. Janet Catherine Berio and Ruth B Phillips meanwhile provide a detailed and excellent chapter, ’Our (Museum) World Turned Upside-Down: Re-Presenting Native American Arts’ in museums.’.

They describe collecting practices and display issues; address problematics of museum practice; and again conclude the chapter with a long list of references.

A chapter by Alun Munslow follows, on history as deconstruction – and includes sections on epistemology, evidence, theories of history (constructing the

above:

Darryl McIntyre

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (4) – Winter 2012 35

past), history as narrative – and concludes with a good list of references.

Michael Shanks and Ian Hodder provide a chapter addressing ‘processual’, ‘postprocessual’ and interpretative archaeologies, and include a number of analytical studies with their coverage, and concluding references. Daniel Miller’s chapter is about artifacts and the meaning of things, and includes various analytical studies and a reference list.

Part Three relates to ‘the consumed world’ and consumerisation culture, including chapters relating to the ‘Aristocracy of culture’ by cultural studies theorist Pierre Bourdieu; ‘Stakeholder relationships in the market for contemporary art’ by Derrick Chong; ‘Organising art’ by Jonathon Vickery; ‘How Hello Kitty commodifies the cute, cool and camp’ by Brian J McVeigh; ‘The sociology of consumption’ by Colin Campbell; ‘Inalienable wealth’ by Annette B Weiner – which includes some references to a New Zealand Maori case re-examined; ‘Consuming fossils and museums in early nineteenth-century England’ by Simon J Knell; and finally, ‘Dustup in the bone pile’ by Virginia Morell.

Part Four includes a chapter on ‘Bones of contention – the repatriation of Native American human remains’ by Andrew Gulliford; ‘Contesting the West’

by Alan Trachtenberg; ‘Abraham Lincoln as authentic reproduction’ by Edward M Bruner; ‘After authenticity at an American heritage site’ by Eric Gable and Richard Handler; ‘Diversity, identity and modernity in exile’ by Sandra Dudley; ‘Tangible reminders of September 11’ by Glenn Collins; ‘On the rocks’ by Philip Doughty; ‘Endangered species and the law’ by Valerius Geist; and finally ‘Museums, collections and biodiversity inventories’ by Pere Alberch.

This comprehensive anthology, incorporating an invaluable index at the end, provides a very detailed and far-reaching analysis of its encompassing theme and title - Museums in the Material World – and would be very useful to students undertaking a tertiary degree in museum studies, as well as providing stimulating discussions and research that is relevant to a broad range of practitioners in the museums field today. []

Dr Darryl McIntyre FAIM is Past President, Museums Australia, and former CEO, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra.

Citation for this text: Darryl McIntyre, review of Museums in the Material World (ed. Simon J Knell), in Museums Australia Magazine, 20 (4), Museums Australia, Canberra, May 2012, pp. 34-35.