Museums Australia Magazine 24(1) Spring 2015

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FACING THE FUTURE:

LOCAL, GLOBAL AND PACIFIC POSSIBILITIES 15-19 May 2016, Auckland, New Zealand

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Museums Aotearoa and Museums Australia invite you to our first joint conference. Crossing cultures and disciplines, the three day conference will explore the relevance and sustainability of museums and galleries now and in the future, and the ways we can be of social, cultural and ecological value. The conference will include a full program of events, activities and extended tours, with a strong emphasis on the cultures of the Asia-Pacific region.

Image credit: Lisa Reihana, in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o T채maki, gift of the Patrons of Auckland Art Gallery, 2014 (still from panoramic video interpretation of 1804 French scenic wallpaper Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique)

6 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

Contents

In this issue Museums Australia National Council 2015—2017 President's Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 From the National Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Tribute to L. Gordon Darling AC CMG (1921 — 2015). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

president

Frank Howarth PSM (Former Director, Australian Museum, Sydney) vice-president

Richard Mulvaney (Director, Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston) treasurer

Margaret Lovell

Expectations of the Museum Leadership Program, sponsored by the Gordon Darling Foundation, Melbourne. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

(Company Secretary and HR Director, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra)

Hard yards and ‘collective genius’: A tale of developing the Encounters exhibition for the National Museum of Australia. . . . . . . . . . 12

members

On the road: The mutual benefits of travelling exhibitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Conceiving and calibrating Gallipoli: The scale of our war. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 The visibility of Islamic art in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

secretary

Dr Mat Trinca (Director, National Museum of Australia, Canberra) Carol Cartwright ((retired) Head, Education & Visitor Services, Australian War Memorial, Canberra)

Suzanne Davies (Director, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne) Timothy Hart (Director, Public Engagement, Museum Victoria, Melbourne) Dr Lynda Kelly (Head of Learning, Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney) Suesann Vos (Sponsorship and Marketing Manager, Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology, Caboolture) ex officio member

Dr Robin Hirst (Chair, ICOM Australia), Museum Victoria public officer

Louise Douglas, Canberra state/territory branch presidents/ representatives (subject to change throughout year)

COVER IMAGE: The 2.4 times larger-than-life model of WW1 surgeon Percival Fenwick, from Gallipoli: The scale of our war, which opened in April 2015 at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand. Photograph by Norm Heke, Te Papa.

ACT Rebecca Coronel (Manager – Exhibitions and Gallery Development, National Museum of Australia, Canberra) NSW Dr Andrew Simpson (Macquarie University, Sydney) NT Janie Mason (Charles Darwin University Nursing Museum, Darwin)

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 Template design: Brendan O’Donnell Cover design: Selena Kearney Content layout: Stephanie Hamilton Printer: Paragon Print, Canberra

© Museums Australia and individual authors.

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

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.

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 Ministry for the Arts; National Museum of Australia; Museum Victoria (Melbourne Museum); Western Australian Museum; and Link Digital (Canberra).

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

QLD John Waldron (Museum consultant, Sunshine Coast, Queensland) SA Mirna Heruc (Manager, Art & Heritage Collections, University of Adelaide, Adelaide)

TAS Richard Mulvaney (Director, Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston) VIC Lauren Ellis (Programs Manager, Museum Victoria, Melbourne) WA Soula Veyradier (Manager, Western Australian Museum, Perth)

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 7

President's Message

L above:

Frank Howarth

et’s start with the citizen. She wants digital access to the things in our collections, in a way and at a time that suits her, and at no cost.

Furthermore, she wants to be able to use that digital material to do whatever she likes.

So once we decide to digitise our collections, that’s all easy and OK, isn’t it? Well, no it’s not, for a range of reasons, both good and bad.

Now, let’s go to the gallery or museum worker or volunteer who really does want to meet the needs of community members. For many staffers in small-tomedium organisations, there is little or no digitised – and therefore potentially digitally accessible – material. Worse still, many might not even know where or how to start the process of creating full on-line digital access to their collections. There is an array of choices for how to do this; and a range of technical issues involved in making it happen. But then there are the complex issues and inconsistent standards around copyright, involving both legal and ethical questions (with special further protocols to navigate for any use of Indigenous material).

One of my main objectives currently as MA National President is to work with our GLAM sector colleagues to overcome as many of these problems as we can resolve through collaborative action. At the time of writing, we have had three meetings of the peak bodies that represent the galleries, libraries, archives, museums and historical societies; and have achieved a remarkable level of consensus on the key issues around digital convergence for the GLAM sector.

We have also collectively urged the Commonwealth Government to rationalise current copyright laws, especially concerning unpublished written material.

The most recent meeting, in early October, was to develop a series of projects to address the complexity of these pressing issues around the process of making collections digitally accessible. My aims are that a collaborative strategy nationally will enable smaller galleries and museums to have access to the tools and resources to make informed choices about the best ways to make their collections digitally accessible; and then to ensure they have the appropriate resources to actually carry out the process. As previously mentioned, I’ll be providing a much more detailed account for all in future issues about our progress towards these goals — but the signs so far are very encouraging.

Also very encouraging is the planning for next year’s joint Museums Australia/Museums Aotearoa national conference in Auckland. I attended a planning meeting in Auckland in late August, and the organisation is going very well, with the best combination of local, Pacific and global gallery and museum issues set to be explored. Several Maori cultural leaders were involved in the discussion, so we are also guaranteed a strong and warm Maori welcome to Auckland, followed by vigorous exploration of Maori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural issues in the conference program — which will be bound also to highlight wider indigenous connections, since Auckland pre-eminently hosts the greatest variety of Pacific cultures in our region.

Key elements of Museums Australia are the branches (State and Territory) and National Networks. Take a moment to think about how you might strengthen and participate in activities of your branch, and which MA Networks might be of interest and value to you (all are listed on the MA website).

Participation makes MA stronger!

Before closing, I want to pay a very special tribute.

We often hear calls for Australians who’ve gained success in their lives to contribute more to arts and culture. We recently lost one person who epitomises a truly far-sighted approach to philanthropy in Australia. That person was Gordon Darling AO CMG. I had the privilege of meeting Gordon several times.

A great man, and we say a bit more about his legacy in this edition of the Museums Australia Magazine, including coverage of one of his greatest gifts to the sector nationally: the Museum Leadership Program, of which the 2015 edition has recently been realised over an intensive week at Macquarie University. [] Frank Howarth PSM National President, Museums Australia

8 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

From the National Director

I above:

Alex Marsden

have been thinking a lot about what MA is. I don’t conceive of MA as a self-contained organisation with strict boundaries, but rather as ‘a series of interconnected relationships’. This lovely expression is an insight from a social capital study in the UK that rings very true right now. (see <http://www. artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/287/case-study/ social-capital-practice>).

All of us relate to our co-workers and peers; to our communities of shared interests and our cities and regions; to our visitors (however they manifest themselves); and to our funders, partners and organisations who share our values. In the twentyfirst century we embrace ‘the other’, see things through others’ eyes, and collaborate with more diverse partners to achieve much more than we can alone. These are some of the invaluable qualities that the museums and galleries sector brings to Australia’s cultural life.

With the recent changes in positions of both the Prime Minister and our Commonwealth Minister for the Arts, I have been talking with government colleagues about our contribution to society’s wellbeing, as well as to the economy, emphasising the creativity, connectedness and innovation in the arts and cultural heritage areas. MA will be seeking both funds and partners to build on these capabilities and national resources, to carry out research and support smaller organisations to engage further both with their collections and their diverse communities.

Recently MA’s National Council met to discuss the question, ‘How might we develop and deliver better member services throughout Australia?’ Council’s standing committees are now pulling together their priorities with a focus on professional development events, research and publications. One clear objective we are seeking to advance is to share services and products developed by one part of the organisation, or related organisations, with members in other states or networks. Another big priority is to respond effectively to calls at the 2015 Sydney Conference (in May) for research and affirmative action around the levels of Indigenous participation and representation in museums and galleries.

Finally, some important tributes. MA has lost two visionaries and benefactors: most recently, Andrew Sayers AM, former MA President, when Director of the National Museum of Australia, and before that inaugural director of the National Portrait Gallery.

Two weeks earlier, Australian media, national leaders, and a great range of senior and young colleagues and friends noted the sad passing of Gordon Darling

AO CMG. Gordon Darling was inaugural Chair of the National Gallery of Australia Council and later founder of the Gordon Darling Foundation, which among other commitments sponsors the Museum Leadership Program, with MA’s strong organisational partnership.

As exemplars of a life of ‘interconnected relationships’, both men will be greatly missed. [] Alex Marsden National Director, Museums Australia

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 9

L. Gordon Darling AC CMG (1921 — 2015)

right:

L. Gordon Darling AC CMG 2006

by Jiawei Shen (b. 1948) oil on canvas Collection: National Portrait Gallery, Canberra Purchased with the assistance of the Mundango Charitable Trust and Claudia Hyles 2006

N

ews of the death of Gordon Darling AC CMG, on 31 August 2015 at the age of 94, struck many people deeply. His passing brought an outpouring of tributes to his life and cultural legacy nationally.

Gordon Darling’s interests and engagements as a businessman, company director, and lover of nature (as a trustee of the World Wildlife Fund, from 1978 to 1982) were broad. Yet the valedictory tributes by individuals, politicians and the media made clear that his most far-reaching public legacy is through the Gordon Darling Foundation, founded in 1991, and the philanthropic initiatives for the enrichment of Australia’s cultural life that it has enabled.

As a man who had studied business leadership as a source of key skills in his life, Gordon Darling had a distinctive style of strong-minded leadership, graced by personal charm and courtesy. In his influential role as Chairman of the Council of the Australian National Gallery (later NGA) in its opening years of 1982 to 1986, he guided the Council in its policy-settings for the Gallery, led its interface with government and ensured its strong contribution to Australian cultural life. Gordon Darling also supported inaugural director James Mollison and his staff, and valued outstanding individuals among curators — Daniel Thomas, heading Australian art, was notable among many. The perfect mix of qualities that could be hoped for in a

chairman steadily enhanced the National Gallery’s positioning in the post-opening years of the 1980s.

Gordon Darling was also instrumental in the creation of another national museum — in this case one that hadn’t been planned by the Commonwealth.

The National Portrait Gallery (established 1998) is the second national cultural institution whose existence today is forever enriched by Gordon Darling’s vision and far-sighted philanthropic initiatives. However in the case of the NPG’s needed development and leadership, Gordon Darling passed the baton to his philanthropic partner and wife, Marilyn Darling AC. Marilyn Darling became board chair (2000—2008) and champion of the National Portrait Gallery’s realisation: raising federal government and private support; appointing an outstanding director (Andrew Sayers) and backing growth of professional staff; securing a final home within the Parliamentary Triangle; and steering a competition-winning architect’s appointment and final construction of a handsome home for a growing collection.

Commissioned portraits by young artists and historical acquisitions gained GDF support, enhancing government funding. The National Portrait Gallery finally opened in 2008, fully equipped for its launch into our national life, capping four decades of Gordon Darling’s philanthropic vision.

To Marilyn Darling AC, Museums Australia expresses deepest condolences. To the memory of Gordon Darling AC CMG, fond tributes are paid to a remarkable man and his enduring cultural legacies.

[Ed.] [ ]

Andrew Sayers AM [ 1957 — 2015 ] Museums Australia pays respect to the sad passing of a former National President who gave so much to the welfare our organisation.

A tribute to his broader contribution to our sector will be published in the subsequent issue of MA Magazine. [Ed.]

10 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

MLP 2015

Expectations of the Museum Leadership Program, sponsored by the Gordon Darling Foundation, Melbourne

Andy Baird (Acting Deputy Director, Audience Engagement, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart) What happens when you feel the passion for a job slowly dwindle? My response has always been to try and learn more, because in learning there is creativity, and in creativity there is passion. Paradoxically my passion has always been learning itself, but this inquisitiveness has at times seen me explore a million thoughts and ideas and dig a thousand shallow holes, instead of the one deep well that reaches water.

So when the workplace started to feel dry again, the bureaucracy started to depress me and utopia started to look like the ABC TV show, I welcomed the chance to dig a little deeper in the museum world, rekindle the passion, and enrolled in the MLP program. It’s time to shift gear and try and instil the passion for learning in our museum and art gallery, and more broadly in our community.

Will the course do this? I’m hoping it will enhance my skills to advocate change and help lead our 170-year-old institution’s ongoing renewal. It’s a privilege to be able to participate in the course, and a tribute to the late Gordon Darling that such a legacy of his generosity exists. The museum sector needs such legacies, especially ones built on renewal, on regeneration, on evolution. On learning.

The course is back at the same uni where I did my science degree 30 years ago, the same place where I deferred my honours course to ‘go save the world’. So all things considered, there’s a sort of unfinished cycle going on here. This time I’m hoping to stay still, dig deeper in this profession, and strike water.

Brett Dunlop (Director Museums, Sovereign Hill Museum Association, Ballarat, Victoria)

top to bottom:

Andy Baird, Brett Dunlop, Dermot Henry, Natalie Jenkins.

I expect that the Museum Leadership Program will be equally valuable in two ways: as a time to learn, and a time to think.

I will have the opportunity to learn from — and be inspired by — eminent figures such as Neil MacGregor and Jeanne Liedtka. I will also have a precious weeklong opportunity to think about the future of the cultural sector, in the company of industry colleagues.

My MLP experience will allow me to engage with new perspectives, challenge some ingrained assumptions, and extend my network of museum colleagues.

At a personal level, I hope to gain insights into my agency as a leader. These outcomes will translate into fresh approaches to leadership and management for my institution.

Dermot Henry (Manager, Natural Science Collections, Museum Victoria, Melbourne) Daily museum life can be all-consuming with its constant, hectic demands to ‘get things done’ in order to meet a series of other people’s deadlines. This also makes for an interesting life.

Through the generosity of the Darling Foundation and leadership of Museums Australia, the Museum Leadership Program affords me the opportunity to ‘take time out’, to reflect on how I can improve my decision-making to ensure a strategic approach to problem-solving.

MLP delivers a rare forum of peers gathered from a diverse range of cultural organisations. My expectations are that the high calibre of the course leaders and stimulating interaction with other museum professionals will challenge me to critically examine my problem-solving methods and leadership style.

I expect the experience will ultimately strengthen my skills and confidence, enabling me to contribute at a higher level to address the challenges facing Museum Victoria now, and those that will inevitably come in future.

Natalie Jenkins (Museum and Art Gallery Northern Territory, Darwin) Working within a museum and art gallery, my focus is always on the issues at hand. The MLP program will allow me to step away from the office and engage with and learn from leaders in the cultural sector and industry.

The immersive experience of networking with colleagues from across Australia and New Zealand, and discussing lessons learnt and new developments in the sector, will be invaluable.

From this program I hope to be able to step back into the office with a new tool-kit of ideas and a fresh focus that I can share with my colleagues.

It’s time to shift gear and try and instil the passion for learning in our museum and art gallery, and more broadly in our community.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 11

Carolyn Murphy (Head of Conservation at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney)

Anna Thurgood (Artspace Mackay Director, Mackay Regional Council, Queensland)

I have been working in the museums sector since 1990 and feel a great commitment to the importance of arts and cultural heritage to the communities of Australia. At this point in my career taking part in the Museum Leadership Program is a great opportunity and a great privilege. This intensive learning environment will allow me the space to look critically at the contribution I can make to our communities through my work in museums and how I can deepen and strengthen my cultural leadership skills. I am looking forward to the opportunity to work with colleagues in the program to examine the issues that face our field today, to think about how we can ensure that museums contribute to and matter to our communities and to start creating the museums of tomorrow.

I am very much looking forward to participating in the 2015 Museum Leadership Program. I actually hadn’t heard of the program before receiving a brochure in the mail. The more I read about it, the more I thought how appropriate it would be for me.

Although I have been the gallery director here at Artspace Mackay for three years, I am only just now feeling as though I ‘deserve’ to be in this position. I was promoted from my previous position as Curator, and found the transition extremely difficult. It was a huge leap, psychologically, emotionally and intellectually, for which I was ill-prepared, as I soon discovered.

I really believe that ‘leadership’ is something that needs to be taught. Not everyone innately has these skills. The Museum Leadership Program, initiated by the wonderful Gordon Darling Foundation, will I hope provide me with the keys to unlock a new level of leadership.

I feel as though I have learnt so much, read so much, know so much; but I need to bring all these threads together to operate at a higher, more strategic, level.

I hope this will be of enormous benefit, not only to me and my gallery, but to the wider regional gallery network in Queensland.

Sarah Murray (Curator Human History, Curatorial Manager Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand) I love working both with people and with objects, and my role as Curatorial Manager at Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, offers me the best of both worlds.

When the opportunity to participate in the Museum Leadership Program of 2015 was offered, I literally leapt at the chance. Being able to work with leaders in the field, and learn new ways of communicating, doing and achieving, offers such exciting potential, both on a personal level and in terms of professional growth.

With numerous challenges facing museums in New Zealand in general, and Christchurch in particular, I hope to gain knowledge that will enable me to be a better leader, to inspire and engage those I work with, and to both recognise and evaluate new opportunities.

I feel as though I have learnt so much, read so much, know so much; but I need to bring all these threads together to operate at a higher, more strategic, level.

Michael Varcoe-Cocks (Head of Conservation, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne) Having heard only glowing reports and transformative experiences of past attendees of the Museum Leadership Program, it was a great honour to be able to join the class of 2015.

Australian museum professionals in leadership roles have few opportunities to test and challenge their managerial principles in a frank and honest collegial environment. I look forward to this group engagement, steered by distinguished experts in specific fields but also supported by fellow attendees drawn from a broad cross-section of the museums sector.

I am sure this will be an intense and challenging experience, which will influence and shape my future and hopefully mutually benefit my institution and staff. [ ]

MLP delivers a rare forum of peers gathered from a diverse range of cultural organisations.

top to bottom:

Carolyn Murphy, Sarah Murray, Anna Thurgood, Michael Varcoe-Cocks.

12 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

A behind-the-scenes view of exhibition planning

Hard yards and ‘collective genius’: A tale of developing the Encounters exhibition for the National Museum of Australia

left: top:

Content workshop 3.

Janey Wood.

above:

Benita Tunks.

top right:

Graphics prototyping with the Director.

bottom right:

Janey Wood and Benita Tunks

E

ver found yourself in the middle of an exhibition development and wondered: ’Crikey, how is all this going to come together?’; or ‘Everyone has such different ideas, how will we work together?’; or just thought, ‘How did this exhibition end up like that?’

Then this story is for you.

The narrative starts way back in 2011 when, following a curatorial staff exchange, the British Museum (BM) and the National Museum of Australia (NMA) signed an MOU to produce two exhibitions: one at the BM in London and one at the NMA in Canberra, both based on the Australian indigenous collection of the British Museum.

The British Museum’s collection is unparalleled.

Formed over the last 245 years, it offers remarkable insights into early colonial relationships and illuminates stories of encounters between Australian Indigenous people and early settlers. The NMA curatorial team decided to focus on items from the BM’s collection for which details of collectors, relevant Indigenous communities, places, and stories could be identified.

Over the ensuing four years, the curatorial team has consulted with more than thirty Indigenous communities across Australia about particular objects collected and their histories. Community members were first provided with extensive information

about the BM’s collection of objects from their region. Through interviews, people generously shared their stories, thoughts and feelings about the objects, the history surrounding them, and continuing connections to these objects today.

For many people this was an intensely emotional process, often providing the first occasion of knowing about the objects removed long ago. Through the community consultations a vast amount of content was generated, and staff back at the National Museum explored, discussed, and often disagreed on best ways to resolve and reduce it to an exhibition. The following topics were keenly debated: key themes to be explored, narrative techniques, use of apps and smart devices, design layouts, alternative interpretive approaches, and which objects and stories should be used for the exhibition.

By 2014, it was time to move from the consultation and research process to the design and development stage — to work out exactly what this exhibition was going to include. More NMA staff got involved.

In addition to our work as project managers (for content and exhibition) and the contributions of a curatorial team, there were now designers, film and text editors involved as well as staff from learning services, multimedia, web and digital learning teams.

The collective project team felt a huge responsibility: to represent the rich and diverse histories involved; to do justice to the stories shared by people; and to deliver a contemporary, thought-provoking and

1.

2.

3.

4.

Content workshop 2.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ linda_hill_how_to_manage_for_ collective_creativity?language=en Linda Hill, Greg Brandeau, Emily Truelove & Kent Lineback, ‘What Does Pixar’s Collective Genius Look Like?’, Harvard Business Review, on-line posting 11 June 2014, <https://hbr. org/2014/06/what-does-pixarscollective-genius-look-like> accessed 30 Aug. 2015.

Linda Hill, ‘Collective Genius: The art and practice of leading innovation’, Harvard Business Review, 2014, p.13.

Linda Hill, http://www.ted. com/talks/linda_hill_how_to_ manage_for_collective_creativity (2minutes54sec).

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 13

collaborative organisation in both R&D and product development,[2] Linda Hill has described the process of computer-generated (CG) film development, emphasising: ‘[h]ow iterative and interrelated — in short, how messy — the steps of the process are, because the story can and usually does evolve throughout the making.’[3] Hill further explained: To help us understand the Pixar process, an individual in the studio drew a flow chart of the steps they take to make a film. He did so reluctantly, because it suggested that the process was a neat series of steps done by discrete groups. Even with all those arrows, he thought it failed to really illustrate just how iterative, interrelated and, frankly, messy their process was.[4] multi-layered visitor experience.

Like any other large, creative project (for example, a film, a video game or a play), developing an exhibition requires a large number of people, with a variety of skills and expertise, in addition to a budget and a timeline. Recently we came across a 2014 TEDx talk, ‘Innovation is a collective genius’, by Harvard Business School professor Linda A Hill,[1] and found that her research on collective creativity resonated with our project.

In writing about Pixar Animation Studios in the US (most recognised for Toy Story) as a model of a highly

Sound familiar?

As project managers, we had to work out what would take us from development to delivery phase and guide everyone through the process. After attending a user-centred design thinking course, some of us as managers also wanted to try out some of the rapid prototyping processes within the Museum context. While previously familiar with prototyping for safety, interactive mechanics and scientific concepts, we now found the idea of prototyping needed to be applied to quite a different type of content and exploratory process.

14 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

A behind-the-scenes view of exhibition planning

Content workshop 1

Interpretive plan revised, includes overall narrative and first cluster & module structure. 12 clusters and 23 modules

First discussion multimedia & app ideas

FEB 14

MAR

APR

Written ideas for apps circulated

New content added narrative retained, now 12 clusters and 31 modules

MAY

JUN

JUL

AUG

Concept design

Concept design revision 1 App rapid prototyping workshop

In developing strategies for the exhibition’s development, we decided to: • Conduct audience-focused content workshops; • Revise and review the key aims of the exhibition, and have them pasted up as often as possible to refer to during content workshops; • Involve as many of the project team as possible in workshops, to ensure a greater appreciation of the whole exhibition; and • Use rapid prototyping[5] workshops to enable innovative ideas to surface quickly, and use low-tech processes (paper and cardboard), to save time and money.

And yes: our processes were messy but also usefully iterative. For example, have a look at our timeline (illustrated) to see just how frequently and rapidly things changed.

Each content workshop involved curators delivering draft content (draft text, images, quotes and short edited film interviews). Everyone attending the workshops received a copy of the content beforehand, and time was allocated to allow all to walk around and

to post comments. As a team, we went through each part of the proposed content and provided feedback.

Having such a diversity of expertise and knowledge brought together proved highly productive. The workshops provided a catalyst for identifying problematic issues early, and collaboratively coming up with solutions. For example, the film editor identified that some film footage wasn’t long enough for a loop; designers then asked the film editor if footage would work without sound, and they discussed the optimum scale of media to be employed.

At the same time web and multimedia staff suggested alternative uses for some content, and education staff advised of potential links between proposed content and the school curriculum.

The inclusion of people previously unfamiliar with the proposed content was invaluable, since they identified conceptual gaps and inconsistencies.

Meanwhile project managers and designers pointed out potential difficulties with the overall quantity of scoped content — ­ in terms of both gallery space available and visitor duration times. Discussions of

above:

Timeline showing key paths in the development of Encounters.

5.

On rapid prototyping: We found the rapid prototyping model very useful for ideastesting – as evolved through design thinking approaches to innovative design of change.

It offers a very useful tool for harvesting the creative energies in a group when developing the ideas and impact potential of an exhibition’s content and key themes. See much material on design thinking and rapid prototyping available on the web.

S

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 15

Existing narrative discarded

Audience user testing – content & app prototypes

SEP

Content workshop 2

OCT

App prototypes refined in small groups

NOV

Concept design revision 2

Content workshop 3

Final narrative structure developed, 10 clusters and 34 modules

DEC

Audience user testing – refined app prototype

Developed design

JAN 15

FEB

Design workshops on final narrative

MAR

APR

Final layout

New narrative structure, numbers of cluster and modules remains at 12 and 31 but restructured

‘why that object?’ abounded.

In overview, the National Museum’s content workshops gave the designers a thorough understanding of the contents and media finally proposed, as well as refining the interrelationships between the various elements of the exhibition — connections between objects, film, images and text. During a recent review process, the editor commented that this exhibition’s text was proving to be the most interrelated and integrated in content that she had ever worked on.

Most importantly, the content workshops — simply by virtue of having proposed exhibition material and themes pasted up on walls and engaging numerous viewpoints about their development — enabled people to identify when things were not working. As a result of each workshop, crucial components of narrative, text types and story development were subject to change. Mostly the desired changes were identified by the team during the workshops. On a couple of occasions we were able to leave the content up for some time and this allowed other staff also to review

it, again providing critical input to the exhibition development process.

A subsequent visitor prototyping workshop on content development provided feedback on both the content to be presented and the different interpretive formats employed to enrich the engagement of audiences. Visitors gave us their reactions to different types of texts, and the lengths of text; and articulated their desires to have more direct information about objects — what they are made of and how they were used — and to ensure people were identified clearly; for example, answering questions such as: ‘Why does she have the right to speak for this community? Who is that? Why is he speaking?’ They also provided feedback on the impact of stories about early colonial conflicts — these stories are still confronting to many people when presented in an exhibition.

Doing ‘something’ with mobile smart devices was a matter of endless debate in early content and design discussions. Relative merits of additional content, augmented reality and social media were debated. Issues and risks around public and private

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A behind-the-scenes view of exhibition planning

conversations were raised — not least the Museum’s responsibility to the people represented in the exhibition. Often discussions turned into content versus interpretation. Interestingly, it turned out that few of the people in the room had even used many GLAM apps, let alone developed one! There was opportunity within the Museum to do something about this gap in a more purposeful way, as corporate plans and budget discussions now identified 'smart device projects' as a significant strategic direction to pursue.

Prototyping workshops were then useful in developing alternative app ideas: to test them with visitors, develop simple paper prototypes, and test again. Many ideas surfaced: additional content, structured dinner-table conversations, scrapbooks, comment threads, and question-and-response formats. It repeatedly proved to be the case that rapid prototyping workshops allowed people to work outside their normal teams and referenceframeworks; to generate many innovative ideas but also, most importantly, to let go of long-held views and provide new resources in a collective iterative

process of developing a final product.

A second visitor-testing session, using simple paper prototypes and screen-shots, was conducted with eight visitors representing relevant audience segments, and staff from the project team interviewing the participants. This session provided us with significant visitor data to have a business case approved to develop an in-exhibition app.

Although this part of the project did not ultimately proceed, nevertheless everyone involved learnt a huge amount — again, about how prototyping works, how to interview visitors, how to draw screen-shots — and this staff learning component expanded people’s ideas about what an exhibition app could be for audiences.

It provided us with new skills to build on in a future project, and that proactive disposition is itself a new resource to carry forward.

What else did we learn?

• Working with diverse teams of people generates new solutions and opportunities; • Working in groups over time builds confidence for people who wouldn’t normally volunteer comments;

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 17

far left to right:

App rapid prototyping workshop; Content workshop 2; Rapid prototyping workshop.

over page:

Final 3D design layout (designed by Thylacine).

Image: Thylacine and NMA.

• These types of processes encourage listening and the debating of views — and yes, it can be scary to put ideas out for robust scrutiny; (we need more practice at this, but can see the benefits); • Physically walking through the content rather than drafting on paper gives a completely different feel to planning an exhibition, and it’s much more apparent when something is or isn’t working; • It’s really hard to find a space large enough to put everything up, and where people don’t get annoyed at you leaving things on the walls for long periods of time; • People appreciate opening up the development process, and having their expertise and views valued and heard; and • Visitors had just as much fun at the prototyping workshops as we did.

In describing the Pixar film development process, Linda Hill highlighted the daily rushes. Work goes up on a daily basis, with everyone able to comment and offer feedback, and with small comments developing into major components of a movie. Whilst we didn’t manage daily sharing, having regular, open workshops

and using the prototyping cycle, we did provide opportunities for people inside and outside the Museum to identify concerns, to advise and, at times, radically change the visitor experience.

It’s been hard and exhausting for everyone involved: trying to work out compromises between opposing viewpoints; managing the many changes to object selections; monitoring the narrative, designs and text, and iterating these processes again and again. Hill’s ‘messy’ tag doesn’t seem to quite cover it.

None of us will be laying claims to collective genius just yet. However, like CGI films, exhibitions today require large numbers of people with a variety of skills and expertise to come together to exchange ideas, test options, and create a coherent whole.

The types of processes we used for the Encounters exhibition for the National Museum of Australia, are assisting us to get better at these processes for future projects.

So how did we go?

Well, three weeks out from the start of installation and 14 weeks from opening – as text moves to layout stage; as we frantically hunt for the last few images

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A behind-the-scenes view of exhibition planning

top: middle: bottom:

needed — people are muttering things to each other like: ‘I think it’ll be OK’; ‘It’s come together, hasn’t it?’

But also still-nagging queries surface: ‘Have we made this clear enough?’ And ripples of anticipation: ‘I hope Aunty/Uncle/community will be proud and happy seeing their story.’

And yes, we’re find things still not complete, and we’re still having those conversations (in varying tones of horror and hysteria): ‘What do you mean, you want another object there?’; ‘You know those label trays have already gone to production, right?’; and some are aghast at new details divulged: ‘We’re re-filming?’

Let’s be honest. In the end, we can’t be the final judges of our work. Come and see the exhibition. Let us know your reactions. Be frank, and give us some feedback. We’d really like to hear your thoughts. [ ]

left: right:

Janey Wood is Exhibition Project Manager, and Benita Tunks Content Project Manager, at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

1. Endnotes

Citation: Janey Wood and Benita Tunks, ‘Hard yards and ‘collective genius’: A tale of developing the Encounters exhibition for the National Museum of Australia’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.24(1), Museums Australia, Canberra, Spring, 2015, pp.12-18.

PO BOX 760, Queanbeyan, 2620 Canberra

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Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 19

The impact of travelling exhibitions in regional communities

On the road: The mutual benefits of travelling exhibitions

Bianca James

T above:

One of the finalists from the National Photographic Portrait Prize, 2012, giving a public talk at Flinders University Art Museum & City Gallery, Adelaide.

rawling through my emails after a long weekend, I came across a message from a gallery enquiring after our 2013 National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition tour.

The gallery was in a town called Roma in Queensland, and I’m ashamed to say that at the time I hadn’t actually heard of it! I promptly turned to my laminated map of Australia and found it — 500km inland from Brisbane.

Tour booked in, and months later in Brisbane waiting for my connecting flight to Roma on my way to install the exhibition, I realised (quickly) that I was the only woman in the gate lounge, and one of only a few not dressed in hi-vis. I have worked the best part of ten years in travelling exhibition programs at the Australian War Memorial and the National Portrait Gallery, but this time it felt different.

Flying into Roma over a huge expanse of farm land, I was landing in a place that, at the beginning of my career in museums, I could never have imagined myself ever travelling to for work. I’m a city-slicker at heart; and although my job had taken me to some far-flung places, this was definitely the most remote!

It is safe to say that we in National and State institutions can become a little blasé about our unlimited access to galleries and museums. It’s just a given that we can take in an international touring exhibition of choice on a weekend. But this simply isn’t the case in regional Australia.

Nevertheless the community engagement with touring exhibitions that I have witnessed throughout regional Australia has been astonishing. I have come to appreciate how essential touring exhibitions are for regional communities. Travelling exhibition programs should be a mandate for national institutions: we are here for all Australians and our exhibitions are an educative, exciting and meaningful way to further our institutions’ core purposes.

When I flew into Roma in 2013 to install the National Photographic Portrait Prize — at the Roma on Bungil Gallery — I was surprised to be met at the airport by the wife of the President of the Gallery, who was there to make sure I got in safely and had everything I needed. From the moment of my arrival, I was part of the Roma family, and hospitality flowed.

I was constantly taken out for meals; was conducted on a tour of Roma’s cattle farming highlights: a cattle auction yard — the biggest in the Southern

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The impact of travelling exhibitions in regional communities

Hemisphere mind you — and a 40,000 hectare cattle farm; and coverage of my visit even made the front page of the local newspaper, The Western Star. My experience in Roma reminded me why I love my job and reinforced why it is so important for national cultural institutions to tour exhibitions.

Having worked for the Australian War Memorial’s touring program at the beginning of my career, I had early witnessed the emotional side of community engagement. For a time, the Memorial ran a program titled ‘Bring in Your Memorabilia’, which would often coincide with a touring exhibition.

While the exhibition was on display, the local museum or gallery was invited to host a ‘Bring in Your Memorabilia’ day. The community would be asked to bring in objects, papers, items about which they may not have had much information, and things that might have been passed down through generations. The Memorial would also provide a panel of conservators, curators and historians, who would be on hand to assess objects, where possible provide identification, and give owners advice on their care, without them having to make the long journey to Canberra.

While all items brought in had a special significance for their owners, the best part of the day was always learning the stories behind objects. It was an opportunity for people from regional communities to reminisce and tell their personal stories, and in some cases gain wholly new insights into their family’s history.

These encounters and services were undeniably important to many in regional Australia. Each venue I visited brought about a new wave of stories and commentaries, from the staff and public alike, confirming that travelling the Australian War Memorial’s collection was an incredible privilege.

In May 2015 I attended the Regional, Remote and Community Museums (RR+CM) day preceding the Museums Australia National Conference. This was a chance for me to get to know the professionals behind so many of the galleries and museums I have travelled to, without the pressure of a looming installation deadline. It was an opportunity for me to ‘down tools’ and really listen, and I’m so glad that I did. I felt I learned as much about the needs and aspirations of regional Australia during this day as during ten years of travelling with national exhibitions. The RR+CM training day further re-enforced for me how important travelling exhibition programs are, and made me reflect upon why we should continue to tour

top:

Bianca James and Tegan McAuley from the National Portrait Gallery installing the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 at Bunbury Regional Gallery.

left:

A children’s education program about taking portraits, designed around the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 by Flinders University Art Museum & City Gallery. bottom left:

National Portrait Gallery crates packed for tour and ready for the truck.

Photo: Bianca James.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 21

such exhibitions: ensuring interstate and regional opportunities to experience selections of national heritage, while also stimulating awareness of how local community stories and objects also link up with a wider heritage.

A point made during the RR+CM day was that these widely dispersed and often smaller museums and galleries often feel like they are treated as ‘sub-institutions’. Having spent a significant amount of time at all sorts of regional museums and galleries, I can confidently say that they are not ‘sub’ but ‘super’ institutions, with staff in these venues — through necessity and ingenuity — undertaking a myriad of tasks on a daily basis. An individual will often curate shows, design education programs, organise events and fundraisers: pursuing a multi-stranded mission while also attending to balancing the annual budget.

RR+CM delegates spoke at the MA Conference about needing to find collaborators to help them develop specialised skills such as publication layouts, upscaling their events and openings, and enriching public programs — rather than being instructed within limits as to what they are perceived to be able to do. As an alternative, when national institution staff travel to install and pack down exhibitions, they bring a range of expertise and can mentor staff in smaller venues. This for me is probably one of the most significant aspects of travelling exhibitions — although I must also admit that I have many times myself been mentored by staff in regional galleries, and have later used many ideas learnt from my installation experiences in regional locations.

The National Portrait Gallery exhibition’s opening event in Roma in 2013 proved only the tip of the iceberg in the impact of the National Photographic Portrait Prize on not only the Roma community but also its outlying towns. For example, I sat in on a meeting of an amateur photography group in Roma.

The ‘shutterbugs’ have both local members as well as from surrounding towns who meet monthly. I was able to talk with members about what judges look for in choosing the finalists for the Portrait Prize, spurring a promise that some of the group would enter the following year.

Such diverse engagement of the Roma community with a single exhibition in a town of 7,000 people demonstrated the great worth of this exhibition travelled thousands of kilometres aboard a truck to such a distant location. Despite having travelled this exhibition for the past four years, I’m still amazed by the exhibition’s ability to engage such diverse audiences and the broad-ranging reactions stimulated.

The National Photographic Portrait Prize has now toured to 26 venues and attracted close to 80,000 visitors across Australia.

Reflecting on my experiences in travelling exhibitions for national institutions, together with the discussion on regional and community museum-based training needs at the Museums Australia conference, I’ve clarified a new reason for the importance of these programs. There is no doubt that the communities benefit from the engagement with travelling exhibitions programs; however, it is even more crucial that national institutions themselves become advocates for the remarkable work being done within our regional, remote and community museums across Australia. And we can only do that by packing up our shows, and both driving and flying personnel there! []

Bianca James is Travelling Exhibitions Coordinator at the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Citation: Bianca James, ‘On the road: The mutual benefit of travelling exhibitions’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(1), Museums Australia, Canberra, Spring 2015, pp.19-21.

left:

Wild emus roaming farmland in Roma. Photo: Bianca James.

22 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

Museum interpretation transformed by a film company partnership: Te Papa’s major Gallipoli exhibition

Conceiving and calibrating Gallipoli: The scale of our war

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 23

Kirstie Ross

A

t 5.30am, on 18 April 2015, hundreds of guests mingled in the foyer of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa), as they waited to attend a powhiri (formal Maori welcome) on Te Papa’s marae (meeting place).

After the powhiri, guests would take part in the Maori blessing and official opening of Gallipoli: The scale of our war, an exhibition about the eight-month Gallipoli campaign seen through the eyes of New Zealanders who were there.[1] The morning’s events were very moving for everyone assembled, whether they were seeing the exhibition for the first time or had been involved in its making from beginning to end.

Gallipoli is Te Papa’s signature project marking the centenary of World War 1. The public’s response to the exhibition since its opening has been remarkable.

Visitors reverently and patiently queue to see the exhibition — at times for more than 90 minutes.

If numbers are taken as the measure, then this ambitious, multi-million dollar project is a marked success: by mid-August 2015, Gallipoli had attracted more than 230,000 visitors. Meanwhile written and verbal feedback reveals the emotional depth of these visits. One visitor wrote after experiencing the exhibition that: ‘[Gallipoli] was exactly what a war exhibit should be. Insightful, moving, informative, emotive. I came away with tears in my eyes. It was hauntingly beautiful. Thank you for all your hard work and for getting it just right.’

The stream of positive public responses, consistently high rates of visitation, and absorbed cross-generational audiences suggest that Gallipoli is delivering Te Papa’s vision — to change hearts, minds and lives. This is a tremendous feat, given the two extraordinary challenges that were embedded in

above:

Kirstie Ross.

left:

Sir Richard Taylor, creative director of Weta Workshop and Gallipoli, poses with three of the exhibition’s scaled-up models: (L-R) Rikihana Carkeek, Friday Hawkins, and Colin Warden.

Photo: Michael Hall, Te Papa. below: Looking out over Wellington harbour from Te Papa’s marae before the dawn powhiri and opening of Gallipoli.

Photo: Kate Whitley, Te Papa.

1.

The blessing was led by the museum’s kaumatua (Maori elder), according to Maori tikanga (customs), in order to spiritually cleanse and prepare the gallery before it opened to the public the next day. All of Te Papa’s exhibitions are blessed at the time of their opening and closing; this is a fundamental part of the museum’s bicultural practices.

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Museum interpretation transformed by a film company partnership: Te Papa’s major Gallipoli exhibition

the project. The first of these, not surprisingly, was the almost mythic status of the exhibition’s subject matter and the public’s interest and investment in it: the potential to get the story, tone and interpretation wrong was enormous. The second, self-imposed challenge was the use of an untested method to develop and deliver Gallipoli. This experiment initially created some uncertainty about project roles and responsibilities. The following discussion touches on the impact these challenges had on the exhibition’s final form.

Merging the museum and the movies Like many museums today, Te Papa features film as both a subject and interpretive medium in its exhibitions. However, for the Gallipoli project, the museum wanted to engage with the spirit and culture of film-making rather than with film per se. This entailed working with a major player in the movie industry, Weta Workshop, to co-create the exhibition.

For readers not familiar with Weta Workshop, the company is ‘a multi-award winning design studio and physical manufacturing facility servicing the world's entertainment and creative industries’.[2] It is one of several Wellington-based creative companies that design and manufacture sets and digital effects, and hire out studio space and post-production facilities, amongst other things. This creative consortium, the work it does, the jobs it provides and the culture it generates, is known locally as ‘Wellywood’, conflating Wellington’s status as New Zealand’s political capital with Hollywood as the capital of commercial moviemaking.

In 2013, having confirmed Gallipoli as the subject of Te Papa’s World War 1 project, Michael Houlihan, the museum’s chief executive at the time, lobbied for a partnership with at least one of Wellywood’s major players. Houlihan and others in Te Papa anticipated a cacophony of activity around the War’s centenary.

Accordingly, they championed a strategic external collaboration that they felt would allow Te Papa’s commemorative efforts to be heard above the din.

That the museum would work with a Wellywood partner was the basis upon which substantial funding was granted to Te Papa by the New Zealand Lotteries Commission — from monies specially set aside to support projects marking the centenary of World War 1.

Besides capitalising on Wellywood’s brand recognition and audience ‘pulling power’, there was another motive behind the initiative. This type of collaboration would give the museum a chance to observe and harness the processes and aspirations of a company like Weta Workshop, with the longterm objective of animating and expanding Te Papa’s approach to exhibition-making. However, as with any experiment, there were risks as well as opportunities attached to this project, especially given Weta Workshop’s relative museological inexperience, in addition to a certain procedural vacuum in which the

exhibition would be developed.[3] ‘Distributed co-creation', as proposed by the museum’s chief executive, was a major departure from Te Papa’s usual practice. The museum normally generates and delivers exhibitions ‘in-house’, with specific expertise contracted in for discrete components within a project. Creative authority is usually exercised and retained by Te Papa, even in the case of iwi (tribal) and community exhibitions.

In the middle of 2014, Sir Richard Taylor — Weta Workshop’s co-founder, co-owner and creative director — was offered and accepted the role of creative director of Te Papa’s World War 1 exhibition.

Te Papa assumed responsibility for spatial design, digital, historical and object-related content, while Taylor held the creative purview and final sign-off on all creative aspects of the project. This ranged from the exhibition’s title and fonts used on text panels, to the ‘look and feel’ of the exhibition’s website.

right: An emotional close-up of hospital ship nurse Lottie Le Gallais, who is ‘frozen’ at the moment she receives sad news about her soldier brother.

Photo: Michael Hall, Te Papa.

Common ground Weta Workshop and Richard Taylor are very much at home in the world of movie-making. Five-times Oscar winner Taylor has, in the course of his career, led design and special effects work on numerous award-winning films of epic proportions, including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. Taylor runs a very successful and profitable enterprise, with a reputation for finding outside-the-box solutions to the infinite and insatiable challenges of the entertainment industry. The Workshop is known around the globe for its fantastic imaginary creatures, realistic replicas, ephemeral environments and the ‘experiences’ it produces. Staff are agile, and respond quickly and ingeniously to the problems posed by Hollywood.

Generally the Workshop’s projects are superbly realised, technically ambitious, big-budget spectacles with broad audience appeal that employ emotive storytelling and compelling characters.

On the other hand, as the national museum, Te Papa is required by statute to account for its activities to the New Zealand government — and taxpayers.

And, like all museums, it is a ‘slow medium’, bound by bureaucratic processes and committed to the gradually unfolding task of collecting material culture for posterity, as well as researching, displaying and interpreting its collections.

Authentic artefacts, meanwhile, are not Taylor’s core business — although personally he understands and appreciates the power of museum collections.

With a staff of artisans, technicians, illustrators and designers, plus Weta Workshop’s 65,000m2 facility, Taylor does not need to rely on the veracity of ‘real’ things. Anything and everything can be fabricated in-house: in fact the Workshop has the ‘equipment, infrastructure and capacity to create anything from hand-made weapons, costuming, make-up effects and creature suits through to full-scale tanks, aircraft, miniatures of any scale and vehicle construction’.

[4] With such expertise at his fingertips, Te Papa’s

2.

http://wetaworkshop.com/ accessed 15 May 2015

3.

Weta Workshop has previously manufactured exhibits for museums, including Sir Peter Jackson’s Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre, but has not been directly involved in other aspects of exhibition development. The appointment of a highly experienced project manager by Te Papa was crucial to the elimination of this critical gap, and to the fusion of the partners’ working methods.

4.

http://wetaworkshop.com/, accessed 15 May 2015

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 25

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Museum interpretation transformed by a film company partnership: Te Papa’s major Gallipoli exhibition

left:

A time line guides visitors through the five galleries or ‘annexes’ that present the Gallipoli campaign from a New Zealand perspective.

Photo: Norm Heke, Te Papa.

admittedly slender and patchy World War 1 collections might have seemed somewhat incidental to Taylor in the making of Gallipoli.

However, Taylor believed that the exhibition could maximise the potential of Weta Workshop to create public impact in astonishing and unexpected ways — while fulfilling the partners’ shared belief in the emotional power of personal stories and storytelling.

After an intense regime of brainstorming, Taylor proposed that super-sized replicas of people who had served on Gallipoli would be at the heart of the Weta Workshop-Te Papa collaboration. Huge, hyperreal humans would, literally and figuratively, become the media to portray personal stories and create the narrative of the fraught Gallipoli campaign. According to Taylor, these would provide the ‘X factor’ that would capture audiences, especially a younger generation with restless minds and limited attentionspans, and generally little interest in the exhibition’s historical subject matter.

Scaling up emotion Eight ‘giants’, inspired by the work of Australianborn sculptor Ron Mueck, became the scaffolding for the exhibition’s narrative framework. These enlarged figures dramatically challenge the anonymity of regular-sized museum mannequins.

The eight sculptures, punctuating the labyrinthine, 750m2 Gallipoli gallery, are based on individuals who served variously at Gallipoli, on a New Zealand hospital ship, and later at the Somme. The giants are displayed in separate, darkened and enclosed

circular galleries, which Taylor dubbed ‘bell jars’.

Interpretation is minimal, aside from words written by each individual one hundred years ago, which are narrated and animated on the walls within the bell jars.

The emotional state of the giants provides the exhibition’s affective arc. The opening emotion is excitement; the concluding one is detachment. In between, visitors encounter futility, lethargy, focused aggression, and grief. Seating provided in the giants’ bell jars encourages visitors to stop and reflect, and enables an emotional connection to the individuals encountered within.

Taylor’s artisans at Weta Workshop devoted an astonishing 24,000 work-hours to produce the eight giants. At 2.4 times larger than life-size, each sculpture is the result of meticulous attention to detail and the use of cutting-edge materials and technologies such as 3D printing, good old ‘Kiwi ingenuity’, and the craftsmanship of Weta Workshop staff honed through years of model-making for movies.

Historical accuracy was uppermost in the minds of Workshop staff, who consulted Te Papa curators on the smallest of details, including the state of individuals’ teeth, and their accents. Every detail had to be scaled-up — even the denier of thread used to weave the khaki cloth for uniforms. This magnification also required the creative use of animal and vegetable substances: commercially-grown yak hair stands in for human hair, while the texture of avocado skins imprinted on silicon re-created the right-sized skin pores.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 27

Re-sizing the meaning of war The massive figures combine two diverging concepts: amplification and concentration. They prompt visitors to think about the scale of World War 1 from these contrasting perspectives. The largerthan-life models are therefore a surprising departure from the scale at which the war is usually presented.

Military history tends to focus on the largescale, usually through analyses of campaigns and the operations of numerically large administrative military units such as brigades or battalions. There is also a tendency for contemporary commentators to dwell on the daunting statistics of ‘total war’, which are almost too huge to comprehend — 9 million dead, 21 million wounded, for example — at the expense of the individual lives each number comprises.

Gallipoli, on the other hand, humanises and personalises the war by concentrating on eight individual stories. This focus also helps to dislodge Gallipoli from the received wisdom that the campaign forged New Zealand’s collective, national identity.

The re-sizing of figures also magnifies the main characters’ emotions. One colleague has compared the giants to movie close-ups, when the thoughts and feelings of an individual fill the screen. Yet the colossal characters also draws visitors’ attention to the minutiae of human existence — the sweat on a brow, the scab on an elbow; a tear welling in the corner of an eye, blood pooling beneath a greatcoat; or a diseasecarrying blowfly settling on a putrid can of bully beef.

The giants have generated a slight dusting of negative comments, with critics comparing their size and realism to that of Soviet Socialist public sculpture.

The implication of such an analogy is to suggest that Gallipoli is an artless government mouthpiece that forecloses debate about the impact of the War, inspiring in its place a triumphalist myth of nationbuilding.

Te Papa’s experience suggests the opposite. Rather than unifying visitors under a banner of mindless patriotism, the extraordinary size of these ordinary individuals has the power to unsettle standard readings of the war. As Susan Stewart observed in her book, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection: ‘[T]he gigantic presents a physical world of disorder and disproportion’.[5] The startling and disconcerting scale of the main characters in Gallipoli provides a metaphor for the massive disruption caused by the Great War, as well suggesting the scale of its impact on individuals’ lives and on New Zealand history over the last century.

Casting call 5.

Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1984), p.74.

Yet Gallipoli is more than eight giant sculptures. A narrative of the eight months that New Zealanders spent at Gallipoli enriches the immersive and affective exhibition experience described above. To help tell this story, the project team arranged the

exhibition footprint chronologically, with the giants ‘frozen’ in time at critical historical and personal moments. Five thematically-organised ‘annexes’ — ‘The great adventure’ (April-May); ‘Order from chaos’ (May-June); ‘Stalemate’ (July); ‘Chunuk Bair’ (August); and ‘Saying goodbye’ (November-December) — link the figures and scenarios into a connected experience.

Te Papa’s curatorial team pored over a range of soldiers’ and nurses’ diaries, letters, photographs and memoirs in our quest to select individuals who could act as emotional gateways to the ‘actionpacked’ thematic episodes. The team then employed diversifying criteria — age, occupation, rank and unit, geographical origin or domicile, gender and ethnicity — to ensure the exhibition represented a broad cross-section of human experiences. Conscious of our bicultural responsibilities, Te Papa curators also insisted that at least one giant be Maori.

Comparatively, the actual number of Maori fighting on the peninsula was restricted — around 600.

However we argued that the Maori contingent’s sole experience of front-line combat during World War 1 was a unique story that warranted special attention.

Robust debates ensued with the exhibition’s historical director and Gallipoli expert, Dr Chris Pugsley, who had the last word on the selection of the principal characters. Our final eight individuals represented the lives of five North Islanders and three South Islanders; including one Briton, two Maori, one Australian, and one woman. In order of appearance they are: • 29-year-old farmer Spencer Westmacott (25 April); • 45-year-old surgeon Percival Fenwick (4 May); • 26-year-old journalist Jack Dunn (4 July); • 25-year-old engineer Colin Warden, 23-year-old carpenter Friday Hawkins and 25-year-old clerk Rikihana Carkeek (6 August); • 33-year-old nurse Lottie Le Gallais (15 November); • 26-year-old school teacher Cecil Malthus (15 September 1916).

The date for the last figure is not a mistake: everyone on the project agreed that we follow one survivor from Gallipoli through to the Western Front.

The purpose was to show that the realities of war during that later and much longer phase of the war completely overshadowed the privations of Gallipoli.

Te Papa curators located living descendants of the seven men and one woman featured in Gallipoli.

To our amazement, two characters had surviving children who were in their 90s. Each life story was intangible heritage and a family treasure, and we liaised with the respective families about how their ancestors should be represented in the exhibition.

This was an extension of Te Papa’s bi-cultural practice of mana taonga, which acknowledges Maori cultural values and knowledge systems and the ongoing connections between source communities and Te Papa’s collections.

In every case, extended families were extremely generous in providing life details about their

28 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

Museum interpretation transformed by a film company partnership: Te Papa’s major Gallipoli exhibition

left:

Miniatures include a model of the New Zealand hospital ship Maheno, which picked up men from Gallipoli from August–November 1915.

Photo: Michael Hall, Te Papa.

right: Visitors write to loved ones on circles of card, like those improvised from shell case packaging by New Zealand Gallipoli soldier Sid Goodyear.

Photo: Norm Heke, Te Papa.

forebears. They were also proud and profoundly moved that Sir Richard Taylor would interpret the war-time experiences of their relatives, which would then take centre-stage in the national museum’s commemorative exhibition.[6]

Tried-and-true interpretation The Gallipoli experience incorporates many movieinspired elements, including marketing ‘trailers’ and a specially-composed soundtrack. However the exhibition also employs a variety of traditional museum interpretation elements, including the use of authentic objects. The project team also utilised a number of very simple devices: timelines, for example, we found useful for propelling the action forward and untangling complex sequences of events.

Gallipoli’s April-to-December timeframe is meanwhile marked out on the floor in the form of a red line that snakes its way right through the exhibition (illustration page 26). In part, this provides a navigational tool for visitors that helps them to locate themselves within the story. It also presents key events and provides a running tally of fatalities.

A small red cross marks each New Zealand death, with the crosses concentrated on the time line when

the fighting was most intense. This approach enabled us to acknowledge the cumulative loss of life on the Turkish peninsula without recreating a full-blown war memorial.

Miniatures provide another conventional counterweight to the show-stopping giants. As Susan Stewart, again, observes: the small-scale ‘represent[s] a mental world of proportion, control and balance’.[7] Miniatures can make particular details of the past intelligible. In this respect, Weta Workshop’s expertise again came to the fore in Gallipoli, producing scale models of trenches and New Zealand’s first hospital ship, the Maheno (illustration above). The ship is a cutaway like a doll's house, which allows visitors to peer into the wards, operating theatre, and even the morgue.

In the same league are dioramas, two of which are given a dynamic twist in the exhibition. The events of 25 April and 6–10 August (the calamitous battle for Chunuk Bair) and the movement of troops on those occasions come alive through the use of animated projections onto two scale models of the peninsula.

Visitors regularly stand glued to these two dioramas, listening intently to the pithy voice-overs that interpret the action.

6.

At the opening function, in keeping with the principle of mana taonga, family members previewed the exhibition separately before others.

7.

Stewart, op.cit., p.74.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 29

Writing ‘the grunt’s’ point of view The Gallipoli team used label text as a primary medium for storytelling, but not without re-considering its approach to perspective and tone.

At Te Papa, especially for social history exhibitions, the production of text is a collaborative and iterative process shared between curators and members of the museum’s writing team.

For this project we followed our usual practice, but exchanged our orthodox, third-person ‘eye of god’ curatorial ‘voice-over’ for labels written from the soldiers’ point of view. You could say that we treated exhibition text more like a film script than as a mechanism for delivering information. Our objective was to place our audience within the action, and to reduce visitors’ emotional distance from the story that sometimes occurs because of museums’ interpretive interventions.

For most of the exhibition we ‘spoke’ in the voice of an imagined literate subaltern, whom we fondly nicknamed ‘the grunt’. It took us a few attempts to calibrate this voice. Initially, we strayed into ‘Boys Own’ territory, and the results were cringingly artificial. We toned down the language but leavened it with words and phrases from the period, based on our readings of soldiers’ diaries and letters, newspapers of the period, and etymological dictionaries. Firstperson quotes from historical sources used as graphics helped to emphasise the ‘grunt’s’ perspective. Writing from the soldiers’ point of view also meant the use of ‘strong language’ — although milder than language used on television or in films today!

Visitors, like the men who served on Gallipoli, experience the action as it unfolds, and without the benefit of historical hindsight. This involved scenesetting text written to entice visitors to find out more, rather than plot synopses at the start of each thematic section — as is the museum’s normal policy.

Here is Gallipoli’s first label, which introduces ‘The great adventure’, as an example: We were in Egypt when they told us we’d be invading Gallipoli. The Turks had sided with the Germans in the war, and we were itching to take them on. Apparently they wouldn’t be much trouble.

Gallipoli was our first campaign of the war. We landed at Anzac Cove on April 25th, ready to back up the Aussies. We clambered up the rugged hills — that’s where the action was. Our great adventure had begun.

And to keep the action in the present, context and ‘flashbacks’ were kept to a minimum. In fact, the

political origins of the war are explained in just 83 words — without mentioning an assassination or an Archduke.

Not just spectators While Gallipoli is the hybrid offspring of the movie and museum worlds, and the giants are unapologetically spectacular, the Te Papa team set out to minimise passive spectating. Where she could, Te Papa’s audience engagement facilitator championed opportunities for visitors to compare the exhibition’s stories and themes with their own lives today, and to give them opportunities to share their responses.

There are two specific places where this occurs. One is at a military ‘post-office’, where visitors respond to the question: ‘If you knew you might never make it home, what would you miss most? What would you say to your loved ones?’ The catch is that they have to write on a small round piece of cardboard or a pre-printed field postcard.

More open-ended questions are posed near the end of Gallipoli, as visitors head towards the exhibition’s Western Front postscript. Utilising a universal symbol of war-time loss and remembrance, the visitor is invited to: Gather a poppy and share your thoughts – someone’s name, a war story, your response to the exhibition, or your feelings on conflict. Feel free to lay your poppy at the feet of the soldier ahead of you, or take it home.

Responses to this appeal have been overwhelming.

During the first weeks that Gallipoli was opened, staff could not fold enough poppies to meet the demand.

The exhibition’s final soldier, who stands in a shell

30 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

Museum interpretation transformed by a film company partnership: Te Papa’s major Gallipoli exhibition

crater, is now knee-deep in a ‘pool’ of poppies left there by visitors, the messages written on them illuminating their heart-felt thoughts and feelings about war and peace.

In review Gallipoli commemorates and comments on Gallipoli, World War 1, and their place in New Zealand history.

The immediate, institutional advantages of working with an external creative partner to deliver this project have been manifold. And with respect to Te Papa’s future methodology and practice, the timing of Gallipoli is likely to be important in the long term.

The Gallipoli exhibition is the last permanent gallery to open at Te Papa before the museum renews exhibits that have been on the floor since it opened in 1998. Gallipoli is poised to influence the way that

Te Papa implements exhibition development and delivery over the next five years and beyond. Its reception provides forceful evidence that it is possible to extend museological horizons and enrich practice when we co-create exhibitions, without losing sight of core museological principles.

The question that is now being asked within Te Papa is: To what extent will this innovative exhibition about New Zealand’s past serve to shape our exhibitionmaking concepts and practice in the future? [ ] Kirstie Ross was lead curator for Gallipoli: The scale of our war, at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand.

Contact: <kirstier@tepapa.govt.nz> Citation: Kirstie Ross, ‘Conceiving and calibrating Gallipoli: The scale of our war’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(1), Museums Australia, Canberra, Spring 2015, pp.22-30.

above:

Gallipoli survivor Cecil Malthus trudges listlessly through the pool of poppies that visitors leave as they exit the exhibition.

Photo: Norm Heke, Te Papa.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 31

Reconsidering Australian museums’ representation of Islamic society, culture and heritage

The visibility of Islamic art in Australia

Sam Bowker [1]

W above:

Sam Bowker.

right:

The Syme Panel, cottonappliquéd tent panel, circa 1890-1910 AD. The oldest Khedival khayamiya to be discovered in Australia. Photo

by Timothy Crutchett.

1.

A variation of this article was first published online in The Conversation on 28 July 2015 <https://theconversation.com/ the-invisibility-of-islamicart-in-australia-44714>.

2.

This is one of the reasons why I curated the touring exhibition Khayamiya: Khedival to Contemporary, which opened in Wagga Wagga in September 2013, with a view to reaching regional museums and galleries around Australia.

hen seen from Australia, the contributions of Islamic artists, designers and poets can seem irrelevant. Most are located, like Star Wars, a long time ago in a place far, far away. If we look at Australia’s most distinctive contribution to the history of Islamic architecture – the vernacular mosques of the Afghan cameleers in Central Australia — we can see the main problem we face. Essentially, what have the Umayyads ever done for us?

For these reasons, Islamic art in Australia — regardless of the era — has become inaccessible and largely overlooked. It is sparsely displayed in our public galleries and museums, and rarely taught as a dedicated subject in Australian universities. Owing to the limitations of budgets and logistics, when exhibitions of Islamic art visit Australia from abroad, they are almost never seen beyond state capitals.[2] For some Australians, Islamic art might evoke artworks and architecture designed within religious contexts. These are usually centuries old and not located in Australia. Yet this field can also be read within a broader social context, emphasising the cosmopolitan exchange of objects and ideas, and playing important roles in the formation and critique of identities.

In 2011, galleries formerly named ‘Islamic Art’ at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art were renamed the New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. What had been a rarefied field for specialists became politically and socially energised after 9/11. This prompted the development of the most ambitious recent exhibitions of Islamic art in Australia — Crescent Moon: Islamic art and civilisation in Southeast Asia at the National Gallery of Australia in 2006[a] and The Arts of Islam: Treasures from the Nasser D Khalili Collection at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2007.[b] Contemporary scholarship into Islamic art provides a valuable and engaging means to critique political perspectives and cultural assumptions.

For Australians, it can help us find the familiar in the unfamiliar. In his book Orientalism (1978), Palestinian-American literary theorist Edward Said argued that western views of the Middle East were selective, inauthentic, imposed by external observers, and problematic. These ideas changed Islamic art’s scholarship, exhibition practice and the production of contemporary art.

As with New York’s Metropolitan Museum, in recent years many galleries internationally have showcased their Islamic art collections in the context of long-term cultural exchanges and diverse forms

32 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

Reconsidering Australian museums’ representation of Islamic society, culture and heritage

of innovation. This can be seen in the re-developed galleries of the Louvre, Paris; the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the new Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, among others.

Establishing a collection on the scale of these museums' resources might not help to solve comparable problems in representation of Islamic art for Australians. Alternative approaches can help us work out the needs of our own audiences, and shape how we can provide the greatest benefit for all Australians with the resources we already have.

Where is Islamic art in Australia?

Individuals such as the graphic designer Peter Gould, contemporary artist Abdul Abdullah and fashion designer Aheda Zanetti are creating vibrant work that engages with contemporary Australian realities. Yet such contemporary Australian innovations are not often acknowledged internationally.

Collecting authentic artworks from centuries ago — with good provenance — is very expensive, and can result in collections that loiter in the shadows of major Islamic collections abroad that have been developing for more than a century (such as the David Collection in Copenhagen). In this respect, Australia’s claims to fame currently lie in the Southeast Asian textiles of the National Gallery of Australia,[c] and the diverse ‘Islamic’ collections formed by the Art Gallery of South Australia. Our university and public libraries collectively possess significant Islamic materials, but illuminations and binding aside, these can be challenging objects for exhibition to audiences not literate in Arabic.

If Australians are to engage with Islamic art internationally, we need to participate within the present. This means reviewing the activities of our universities sector — especially the work of PhD and postgraduate researchers — to consider how their innovations can be translated to exhibitions and online interactions. The Islamic Museum of Australia (IAM), Melbourne, may play an important role in this process as a mediator between researchers in universities, objects in our collections, and the Australian public. This new museum was featured by Museums Australia shortly after its opening in 2014.[3] The IAM’s emerging collection in Melbourne is noteworthy for the emphasis it places on contemporary Australian art alongside historical objects of Islamic tradition. This is because these works situate the artists’ identity, politics and heritage in both local and international contexts simultaneously. However, ‘contemporary art’ and ‘Islamic art’ are not usually the same thing. The only

international forum in which these genres currently unite is the Jameel Prize, which might be described as ‘the Blake Prize for Muslim artists’.

Exhibitions of contemporary art from the Middle East (and other regions) are frequently curated abroad, yet rarely seen in Australia. The closest we have seen are individual contributions featured within the Queensland Art Gallery’s Asia-Pacific Triennials (since 1993) and sometimes in more recent editions of the Biennale of Sydney (inaugurated in 1973). Yet we must not construe these representation as ‘Islamic art’, since many of the exhibited artists would reject this overbearing and vague term.

Exhibitions of contemporary art, however, provide important means of accessing and understanding the complexity of art forms across the challenging and highly topical regions of the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific today. This is also true of representations in ‘historic’ collections.

above:

A corrugated iron mosque used by the Afghan cameleers in Bourke, NSW; built around 1890.

Conollyb/Wikimedia Commons.

top:

The Dome of the Rock, an Umayyad architectural masterpiece, was completed in Jerusalem in 691. Kyle Taylor/ Wikimedia Commons.

What goes well with Islamic art?

Maps, music and food seem to be popular accompaniments to exhibitions of Islamic art. In the case of the IMA in Melbourne, a Masterchef finalist (Samira ElKhafir) runs the restaurant, and few forms of cultural fusion are as engaging as food. Given the importance of sound, poetry and language in Islamic cultures (most notably manifested in the Qur’an and the Adhan, or call to prayer), acoustic installations are important considerations for exhibition designers and public programming.

3.

See Helen Light, 'The Islamic Museum of Australia', Museums Australia Magazine, 22(3), Museums Australia, Canberra, Autumn 2014, pp.10–12.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015 33

left:

The 'Tent Room' of Doddington Hall – a fully restored late-nineteenth century Egyptian Khayamiya, a masterpiece of Egyptian Tentmaker Appliqué.

Photo courtesy James and Claire Birch, Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire UK (2013).

Australians are intrepid travellers, and a map is an invitation to a journey. However museums must also consider how we can visualise the geographic diversity and cosmopolitanism of Islamic art without resorting to cliché, or baffling lists of unfamiliar dynasties. In the case of Khayamiya: Khedival to Contemporary,[d] the ‘Street of the Tentmakers’ is illustrated without identifying its precise location in Cairo. Videos engage with the movement, sounds, colours and energy of this historic and constantly changing location, including glimpses of traditional Egyptian street food served for locals from hole-inthe-wall restaurants.

What can Australian museums do with Islamic art?

Islamic art has a well-deserved reputation as an ‘unwieldy field'. Simply put, it’s just too vast — across distance, cultures and time. The term is frequently challenged by curators, as it does not account for the majority of twentieth-century art from the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. This can be better described as ‘international contemporary art’.

Nevertheless, when they were still new, this would also have been an apt descriptor for most objects now under the reductivist curatorial umbrella of ‘Islamic art’.

Islamic visual culture is of greater resonance for most Australian audiences than Islamic art. For example, discourses around the veil, the influences of gender, and the applications of the body, portraiture and figuration to design are issues that deserve further engagement through exhibitions. The touring exhibition Faith, Fashion, Fusion: Muslim Women’s Style[e] from the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse Museum) is an important address to these issues, emphasising innovation for domestic and international markets.

These, and political concerns manifested after the so-called Arab Spring, are important issues that have been discussed through forums engaged by art exhibitions. In terms of promoting informed and balanced public understanding, the paranoid diatribes of right-wing nationalists might be addressed by nuanced and sensitive approaches to aesthetic ideals, especially when these emphasise cosmopolitan interactions successfully maintained over the past thousand years.

34 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(1) – Spring 2015

Reconsidering Australian museums’ representation of Islamic society, culture and heritage

There are also popular myths to be addressed about Islamic art. This vast genre does not ‘ban’ images of people. There is a lively stream of portraiture within the field, including many varied representations of the Prophet Muhammad. Meanwhile the geometric imperatives within Islamic design are accessible to all, as they are governed more by mathematical imagination than theological principles. Such awareness is highlighted in the recent work of the graphic designer and educator Eric Broug.

In a similar vein, the appreciation of calligraphy does not require literacy in Arabic, as many calligraphic forms are themselves complex to the point of illegibility to most viewers or readers. As with metalwork, textiles, painting, or formed glass, knowing how an object is made simply adds another dimension to our appreciation of these art forms.

Specialist knowledge is not a prerequisite for viewing.

The proliferation of many myths about Islamic art, and lack of opportunities to address them, led to the creation of the distance education subject Introduction to Islamic Art and Design through Charles Sturt University, based in regional New South Wales. This subject is available for professional development as a single-subject enrolment over November 2015 to February 2016; and among other considerations, it has been designed with specific attention to the needs of the Australian GLAM sector in mind.

Conclusion Australians have been regrettably excluded from Islamic art by a combination of institutional reticence, factors of distance from collections and exhibition opportunities, as well as a general social antagonism inhibiting full expression of this important field of Australia’s cultural diversity.

Reversing a history of neglect, and with strong reasons today to address new opportunities for social inclusion, our museums, galleries and universities can substantially help Australians to enjoy new content-areas of public programming and exhibitions development, while also contributing to the international re-evaluation of Islamic art. Drawing on Australians’ own greatly increased engagement with contemporary art in recent decades, there is a strong potential to create effective and innovative programs if we focus upon engaging with the contemporary edge of this rapidly changing sector.

Australian institutions, and our audiences, have much to learn from this vastly expanding and changing field of art practice, configured in various ways by Islamic heritage. [ ] Dr Sam Bowker is Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture, School of Communication and Creative Industries, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga NSW. Citation: Sam Bowker, ‘The visibility of Islamic art in Australia’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(1), Museums Australia, Canberra, Spring 2015, pp.31-34.

Exhibition details: [a] Crescent Moon: Islamic art and civilisation in Southeast Asia/Bulan Sabit: Seni dan Peradaban Islam di Asia Tenggara, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 24 February – 28 May 2006. [b] The Arts of Islam: Treasures from the Nasser D Khalili Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 22 June – 23 September 2007. [c] See Textiles of Southeast Asia, by former National Gallery of Australia curator Robyn J Maxwell, which was first published in association with a NGA exhibition in 1990; rev. edn, 1999. [d] Khayamiya: Khedival to Contemporary (curated by the present author, Sam Barker) was the world’s first exhibition to reveal the story of the Egyptian Tentmakers from the Late Ottoman Empire to present-day Cairo. It opened in August 2013 for a showing at the Charles Sturt University Campus, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales (26 August – 12 September 2013), and has subsequently been exhibited elsewhere. [e] Faith, Fashion, Fusion: Muslim Women’s Style, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 5 May 2012 – May 2013, and subsequent national tour in Australia.

above:

Khedival Khayamiya, circa 1890-1910. Private collection.

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Galleries of Remembrance The Shrine of Remembrance Photographer Vlad Bunyevich.

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