Museums Australia Magazine 24(4) Winter 2016

vol 24 (4) winter 2016 $15.00

Museums Australia

Australia in the Great War, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT Australia in the Great War is the new permanent exhibition in the First World War Galleries at the Australian War Memorial.

It is the first major refurbishment of the galleries in over 40 years and one of the key contributions to commemorating the centenary of the conflict. Principal exhibition designers Cunningham Martyn Design, developed probably the most challenging gallery re-configuration project Designcraft have ever delivered. The complex Joinery and Showcase package pushed our fabrication ability and facility to the limit.

The result is a world class gallery experience. Designcraft are proud of our association with this flagship Australian project.

Exhibition design: Cunningham Martyn Design.

furniture joinery showcases 8 Tralee Street Hume ACT 2620 02 6290 4900 info@designcraft.net.au www.designcraft.net.au

Photography by John Gollings.

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Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 5

Contents

In this issue Museums Australia National Council 2015—2017 President's Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 From the Director. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 ICOM Australia’s International Awards 2016. . . . . . 8 Museums Australasia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards 2016. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Museums and Galleries National Awards 2016. . . . 13 Tribute to Colin Pearson: Leader and mentor of the conservation profession in Australia. . . . . . . 15

president

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

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

Margaret Lovell (Canberra)

secretary

Dr Mat Trinca (Director, National Museum of Australia, Canberra) members

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

UNESCO implements a major international initiative in support of museums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Between history and memory: The Australian official war art scheme turns 100. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Class, Grit and Touch Screens. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Eating up Culture: Interpreting food through public programming in museums. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 From Cecil Park to Parramatta: A rescued Matilda tank completes a very long journey home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Children’s books can successfully introduce museums: Review of Linda Gifford’s Arthur and the Curiosity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

COVER IMAGE: (detail of work in progress) Imants Tillers with Australian Tapestry Workshop Master Weavers Sue Batten, Chris Cochius, Pamela Joyce, Milena Paplinska and Cheryl Thornton, Avenue of Remembrance, 2014-15, cotton and wool tapestry. Australian War Memorial collection, commissioned with the support of the Geoff and Helen Handbury Foundation.

© 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 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 Cover design: Selena Kearney Content layout: Stephanie Hamilton Printer: Adams Print, Melbourne

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: 100003705 ISSN 1038-1694

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) Michael Rolfe (CEO, Museums & Galleries of NSW, Sydney) ex officio member

Alec Coles OBE (Chair, ICOM Australia), Western Australian Museum public officer

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

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) 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)

6 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

President's Message

I above:

Frank Howarth.

’m writing this just after the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) meeting in Washington DC, an intimate gathering of 5000 or so museum professionals. The AMM meeting happened just a week after the Museums Australia (MA) groundbreaking joint conference realised in partnership with Museums Aotearoa in Auckland.

AAM is so big and so diffuse (by its very nature) that it didn’t bring the wonderful buzz that the Auckland conference had. I was also surprised (again) by the absence of any recognition of indigenous peoples at AAM, even more so given the critical role that our Maori hosts played at the ‘MA Australasia’ conference in Auckland in May. I was asked many times in Auckland about when we will do another joint conference. MA’s National Council will have a big think about this, but let’s just say that I believe we will have another such conference within five years. In any case, many ideas about closer collaboration around our normal conferences came out of the Auckland meeting, including how we might both use international keynote speakers jointly so we can reduce the cost of bringing them such long distances and achieve more impact from their visits. My thanks go again to a wonderful joint organising committee led in New Zealand by Phillipa Tocker and in Australia by Alex Marsden.

One thing AAM does do well is to advocate to all levels of American government on behalf of the greater museums sector, and we can adapt some of their approaches. In my opening remarks at the Auckland conference I deplored the ongoing reduction of funding to the cultural sector, especially in a time when governments are advocating the need for more innovation. MA has been in contact with each major party, clearly setting out our views prior to this year’s federal election, which has probably been decided by the time many of you read this. However members will also have received material for use in advocacy at the local level. The louder and more concerted we are, the more effective we will be.

There was another slightly disconcerting message from the AAM meeting in Washington. It was that while there is a lot of money flowing into philanthropy, in the USA at least the share going to arts and culture is decreasing. The main reason seemed to be that donors are moving more into areas of immediate and tangible impact, in particular related to human health and wellbeing. This is an even stronger trend with the upcoming generation of new donors for whom arts and culture are well down the priority list, and who want to see immediate results from their benefaction. This is something that

is also likely to occur in Australia, and for which we will need new approaches to developing philanthropic funding.

MA’s National Council has spent a lot of time over the last year on how to improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of the Council. The current Council is large, comprising four executive roles, six directly elected Councillors, and the chairs of each State and Territory Branch, making for a large group; yet the MA Networks, a vital part of our organisation, are not represented at all. Council meetings tend to be dominated by administrative matters, with too little time for strategic thinking and vigorous debate. MA’s current Management Committee (the four Executive plus the National Director) handles a lot of day-today work, but does not have the authority to do much without reference to the full Council, which slows down decision making.

The trend in many national membership organisations now is to split their governance into two parts: a large, representative group which meets maybe twice a year, but for a longer more strategic meeting; and a smaller, more skills-based managing board which handles the day-to-day decision making and can move decisively on current issues. At its meeting in Auckland coinciding with the recent conference, National Council decided to trial a version of this two-part governance model, which can be implemented under our current constitution.

For the trial, Council has delegated all of its general operating powers to a newly constituted Management Committee, which will comprise the current committee plus a small number of new members with particular skills needed to strengthen MA, for example in fundraising or marketing. Full Council will retain the power to review and endorse the strategic direction of MA, and to approve the budget and annual accounts.

Council has also decided to invite the active National Networks to take ongoing and active observer roles at each full Council meeting (the current constitution doesn’t allow them to be formally part of the Council).

These changes will be tested for a year or so. If they work, we will seek to amend the Constitution to make them permanent. If they don’t work, we will review our governance strategy and try something different.

Either way, we will achieve a more effective Council serving your needs. [] Frank Howarth PSM National President, Museums Australia

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 7

From the Director

M

useums Australia is a national organisation that has two defining and complementary roles: a membership association and a peak body. As a member-supported body we aim to provide advice, communications and services to enable organisations and workers to thrive; and as a peak body we speak with delegated authority on behalf of the sector, with the aim of communicating the value of museums and galleries, advocating for the sector, raising professional standards, and promoting ethical practice.

The last year has been a full and challenging one, as we’ve been seeking to improve our activities and effectiveness in both key roles. These times are marked by shrinking government resources on the one hand, and increasing collaboration and advocacy on the other. Despite the limited income, MA is emphatically not just treading water, but developing projects and strategies to thrive and grow — this means that on top of improving the membership, website and financial management requirements, projects such as enabling digital access to collections, national professional development, and the Indigenous audit are vital to demonstrate value and increase our effectiveness and visibility.

It also means that we must continue to be more public advocates for the sector. Consultation has shown much frustration with the sector’s lack of recognition in the general community and the insufficient resources for cultural organisations of all sizes. MA will continue to highlight your contribution to society’s wellbeing, as well as to the economy, emphasising the creativity, connectedness and innovation so active in the arts and cultural heritage areas.

This year we are on the path of more direct action and project development (including testing approaches and learning), and providing more targeted support to Council as it evolves. Advocacy as a single national voice for our broad and diverse museums and galleries sector, together with highprofile projects, will help secure more resources for both MA and the sector in the longer term. And this is an election year – both federally and in the Northern Territory and the ACT. Please turn to our centrefold for ideas, arguments and useful bits of information that you can use continuously in advocating for your organisation and for Australia’s cultural life!

Alex Marsden National Director, Museums Australia

Efficient and effective?

'For our national cultural institutions we are seeing an efficiency dividend that actually diminishes effectiveness' — Alex Marsden 4 May 2016 National Museum of Australia (NMA) National Gallery of Australia (NGA) National Portrait Gallery (NPG) Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House (MOAD) National Library of Australia (NLA) National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) These are the cultural institutions hit most heavily by the cumulative impact of the Commonwealth government’s 'efficiency dividend', which is basically a funding cut each year with no change in responsibilities. So the burden gets heavier year on end.

The impact is real at many levels: • Losing skilled staff: for example, the NMA has reduced its workforce by 25% in the last five years • Discouraging or preventing new young workers from joining the sector • Stopping or delaying programs such as exhibitions and research • Closing venues: for example, the NGA has now closed its contemporary art space on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, less than two years after it opened • Cutting back on their national roles – such as developing fewer touring exhibitions to the regions and less help with digitising collections: for example, the NLA will stop its free service that brings together content in Trove from museums and universities.

What do we want?

1.

2.

Stop applying the efficiency dividend to these cultural institutions Increase their funding to cope with the growth in population and demand

above:

Alex Marsden.

8 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

ICOM’s National Committee honours an individual and an organisation for outstanding achievements internationally

ICOM Australia’s International Awards 2016

Nancy Ladas

aboce:

Nancy Ladas.

right:

Des Griffin.

far right:

Installation shot of Encounters: Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum at the National Museum of Australia, 20152016. Photo courtesy of NMA. bottom right: Installation shot of Indigenous Australia: enduring civilisation at the British Museum 2015. The painting on the right, Kungkarangkalpa, 2013, by Kunmanara Hogan, Tjaruwa Woods, Yarangka Thomas, Estelle Hogan, Ngalpingka Simms and Myrtle Pennington is reproduced courtesy the artists and Spinifex Art Centre. Photograph, © The Trustees of the British Museum.

In 1946, fourteen nations were represented in Paris at the founding of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), making 2016 ICOM’s 70th anniversary year. Two of the founding nations were Australia and New Zealand.

In view of this background, it was fitting that museum workers from both countries gathered together at the 2016 Museums Australasia Conference dinner in Auckland on 17 May to celebrate the success of colleagues in international achievements for museums. This year, two ICOM Australia International Awards were presented by Dr Robin Hirst, Chair of ICOM Australia.

The ICOM Australia Individual award recognises sustained international work over a long period, and was presented to New Zealand-born Dr Des Griffin AM, who as a museum professional has spent much of his life advocating for cultural diversity within the museums sector, especially in Australia and New Zealand.

Des came to Australia as a marine scientist appointed to the Australian Museum, a position he held for 22 years, during which he published more than 60 papers. Des served as Director of the Australian Museum for more than two decades (1976– 1998), and during this time transformed the museum’s culture and practice. He led many important initiatives, in particular committing the museum to greater museum engagement with audiences, and championed reviews and policies to advance the rights and representation of Indigenous people in museums.

At the national level, Des steadfastly led the cause of bringing separate Australian museum associations together for shared objectives and stronger advocacy.

He was Chair of the Council of Australian Museum Associations (CAMA) from 1988–1993, and became the first President, until 1996, of Museums Australia.

In the 1990s, he was a key player in the establishment and development of what became the Heritage Collections Council, convened by the Commonwealth government.

The HCC pursued a collaborative, national overview of the common needs and potential of museums and galleries in their care of heritage and public engagement, and notably developed the concept of a distributed national collection representing the shared heritage of all Australians. Responding to the rapidly changing digital environment, the HCC supported the development of Australian Museums On-Line (AMOL), with the aim of a shared digital portal for public access to collections online. As Chair of CAMA, Des also backed the proposal, in partnership with ICOM Australia, for Australia to host

an ICOM General Conference & Assembly – finally realised in Melbourne in October 1998, under the overarching theme of Museums and Cultural Diversity.

One of the most important achievements of Des Griffin’s national leadership was the development, through culturally co-chaired consultation with Indigenous leaders, of the first national policy for Australian museums in their relations with Indigenous people. Entitled Previous Possessions, New Obligations,[1] the policy was adopted at the final conference of CAMA, in Hobart in November 1993, heralding the emergence of Museums Australia in January 1994, with the Indigenous policy as MA’s founding policy. The revised and current version of this national policy, Continuing Cultures, Ongoing Responsibilities: Principles and guidelines for Australian museums working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage, marks a policy now recognised for a generation and acknowledged by governments at various levels across the Australian museums sector.

In 1990, Des Griffin was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his services to museums, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 2014.

Since his retirement from the Australian Museum, Des has been a vocal commentator on museum management, leadership and governance, including the management of change, the contribution of museums to learning, and the role museums can and should play in public issues such as care for the natural environment, support for cultural diversity, and advancing affirmative support for Indigenous peoples.

The ICOM Australia Institutional award celebrates international collaboration and exchanges that promote information sharing and distribute resources beyond Australia. The award for 2016 was presented to the National Museum of Australia (NMA) for its innovative collaboration with the British Museum (BM), which saw the realisation of two landmark exhibitions: Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation, shown at the BM in 2015, and Encounters: Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum, shown at the NMA in Canberra over the summer of 2015–2016.[2] The four tenets of the National Museum’s collaboration with the British Museum have been to research the Australian Indigenous holdings of the BM; to reconnect this material with contemporary Indigenous communities; to display the results in Canberra and London; and to enhance the nation’s cultural life through public discussion about the complex issues that surround such collections.

This innovative collaboration also resulted in

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 9

top: middle: bottom: left: right:

1. For full background on the context, objectives and process of developing this policy, see D.J. Griffin, ‘Previous Possessions, New Obligations: a commitment by Australian museums’, Curator: The Museum Journal (AltaMira, Maryland, USA), vol.9, no.

1 (1996), pp.45-62.

the establishment of a Prince’s Charities Australia scholarship program for Indigenous cultural workers, which includes skills development and capacitybuilding placements at the British Museum and access to other British institutions. This partnership is providing development opportunities for six Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural workers to engage in a transformative development program realised in both Canberra and London.

The scholarship program is one of many collaborations developed within the NMA’s International Program. The program builds enduring collaborations with international institutions through joint development of public events and exhibitions, and supports knowledge development, capacity building and cultural understanding through skills exchange and sharing of expert advice.

Each winner of the ICOM Australia Awards annually receives a presentation certificate together with a glass paperweight globe, commissioned by ICOM Australia from master glassmaker Benjamin Edols and created at the Canberra Glassworks.

Collective congratulations from ICOM Australia are extended to Des Griffin AM, and to the National Museum of Australia, for outstanding achievements

and international contributions that were deservedly honoured at the Museums Australasia National Conference in May 2016.

Nancy Ladas is the Manager of Collection Information Systems at Museum Victoria and the immediate past National Secretary of ICOM Australia.

Citation: Nancy Ladas, ‘ICOM Australia’s International Awards 2016’, in Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(4), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter 2016, pp. 8-9.

2. Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation was shown at the British Museum, London, 23 April – 2 August 2015, while the very different, expanded exhibition prepared especially for Australia, Encounters: Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum, was shown at the National Museum of Australia, 27 November 2015 – 21 February 2016. For the NMA’s coverage of its preparation of Encounters, and detailed consultation with Indigenous communities concerning objects shown from the British Museum, see 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. For a discussion of both exhibitions – realised separately in London and Canberra – see a review article by Ian McLean, ‘Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilization and Unsettled Encounters’, in Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(3), Museums Australia, Canberra, Autumn 2016, pp. 10-17.

10 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

Celebrating the most original and beautiful designs from Australia’s and New Zealand’s cultural institutions

Museums Australasia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards 2016

Stephanie Hamilton

above:

Best in Show (Publication), Museum of Contemporary Art Australia's Grayson Perry: My Pretty Little Art Career (Designer: Claire Orrell).

2

016 marks the 19th Multimedia and Publication Design Awards (MAPDAs). The first awards, modelled after the American Alliance of Museums publication awards, were held in 1994 in Perth, Western Australia. The ‘multimedia’ categories were added to the awards in 2003, after a 3-year recess. The first time New Zealand entered the MAPDAs was in 2004.

The awards were established to celebrate excellence and quality in design of publications and multimedia produced for the museums and galleries sector.

Museums Australia would like to thank long-time MAPDA sponsors, Australian Book Connection. We would also like to thank the judges: Ian Wingrove (Wingrove Design), Brendan O’Donnell (Corvus Creative), Suzie Campbell (arts and marketing

consultant), Nat Williams (National Library of Australia), and Katherine Johnson (Wingrove Design).

Judging is a day-long event in Canberra where the 200-plus entries are critically examined, played with, flicked through and often secreted away in bags to take home at the end of the day.

The 2016 MAPDAs were presented at an awards gala night as part of the Museums Australasia Joint Conference (www.ma16.org.nz), on Wednesday 18 May 2016 at the Aotea Centre, Auckland, New Zealand. The awards event coincided with International Museum Day (IMD), held annually on 18 May, and this year themed as Museums and Cultural Landscapes (http://imd.icom.museum).

The objective of IMD is to raise awareness of the fact that, 'Museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 11

among peoples.' Museums Australia believes that the principles behind the MAPDAs — excellence in design and communication — are a key component of this cultural exchange.

Where many industries are abolishing their printed merchandise in favour of digital, the diversity and quality of the entries in this year’s MAPDAs show that the print medium is still going strong in the cultural sector. With more than 210 entries from Australia and New Zealand, ranging from exhibition opening invitations, to blockbuster exhibition catalogues, the MAPDAs exemplify the popularity of print, and importance of excellent design, in museum and gallery communications.

Likewise, the electronic categories in the MAPDAs (Multimedia, Institution Website and Program Website) were equally well-represented in the awards and featured outstanding innovation

and aesthetics in digital design, interactivity and presentation. The incredible variety and originality of multimedia applications demonstrated by the MAPDA entries show how the GLAM sector can be a leader in and catalyst for technology development and implementation.

The Best in Show award is selected from all the winning entries across all categories. These overall awards (one for print, one for multimedia) went to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia for the exhibition catalogue Grayson Perry: My Pretty Little Art Career, and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu for their website redesign (http:// christchurchartgallery.org.nz/).

All of the shortlisted, highly commended and winning entries, including judges’ comments, are available to view at www.mapda.org.au

top row from left:

MAPDA judges in Canberra; Representative from Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation receiving award; Judges' Special Award, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation's Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Collection (Designer: Mark Gowing); bottom row from left:

MC and Director of the New Zealand Maritime Museum, Vincent Lipanovich; Representatives from Te Tuhi at the awards ceremony; Winner of Exhibition Catalogue (Major), Level A, Te Tuhi, Unstuck in Time (Designer: Kalee Jackson);

12 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

Celebrating the most original and beautiful designs from Australia’s and New Zealand’s cultural institutions

The diversity and quality of the entries in this year’s MAPDAs show that the printed medium is going strong in the cultural sector.

right from top:

Best in Show (Multimedia), Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu's website redevelopment (Designer: Matt Arnold & Tim Kelleher (Sons & Co.);

Winner of Exhibition Branding, Poster and Multimedia categories, for Level B, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Julian Rosefeldt Manifesto Exhibition (Designer: Felicity Hayward); Winner of Exhibition Branding and Multimedia categories for Level A, Octapod, This is Not Art 2015 (Designers: Sarah Cook, Sara Spence and Jaime Pritchard).

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 13

Celebrating the innovation and inspiration at the core of our museums and galleries

Museums and Galleries National Awards 2016

right:

Debbie Abraham from Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery accepting winning MAGNA awards for Temporary and Travelling Exhibition, and Indigenous Program or Keeping Place categories.

The diversity, innovation and community focus that is at the heart of the work of all MAGNA winners are testament to the importance of museums and galleries in their communities for the purposes of education, entertainment and life-long learning for all Australians.

Museums Australia gratefully acknowledges all of the category judges who volunteered their time and expertise to the MAGNAs. More than 70 entries were received this year across the four categories – Interpretation, Learning and Audience Engagement; Permanent Exhibition or Gallery Fitout; Temporary or Travelling Exhibition; and Indigenous Project or Keeping Place.

bottom:

National Winner, Murray Art Museum Albury.

National Winners

T

he MAGNAs, an initiative of Museums Australia, were first realised in 2011. Held annually in conjunction with the Museums Australasia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards (www.mapda.org.au), the MAGNAs celebrate outstanding achievements in the Australian museums and galleries sector in the categories of exhibition; audience engagement and learning; and Indigenous programs. The MAGNAs are open to all Australian cultural collecting institutions who are members of Museums Australia. These awards set out to encourage the continuous improvement and development of Australian museums and galleries; inspire and recognise best practice and innovation in the collecting sector; and enhance the profile of museums and galleries in local and wider communities.

The 2016 Museums and Galleries National Awards (MAGNA) were presented at an awards gala night as part of the Museums Australasia Joint Conference (www.ma16.org.nz), on Wednesday 18 May 2016 at the Aotea Centre, Auckland, New Zealand. With Director of the New Zealand Maritime Museum, Vincent Lipanovich, as MC, the night incorporated the New Zealand Awards, the Museums Australasia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards (MAPDA) and the MAGNAs.

The overall National Winner in a year is selected from a shortlist of the winning entries from all categories. The 2016 National Winner was awarded jointly to Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) for their museum redevelopment, and to the National Museum of Australia (NMA) for the temporary exhibition, Encounters: Revealing stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects from the British Museum. Both winners bravely engage with and expand the boundaries of the social role and public value of museums. They have sought to understand, serve and empower communities, and in doing so, have co-created outstanding museum experiences.

Both projects were arduous and years in the making, requiring commitment, collaboration, and drawing on the strength of good ideas. Both projects will have lasting impact.

Murray Art Museum Albury uses contemporary art experiences to inspire, educate and encourage new audiences to engage with art and culture. Accessibility

14 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

Celebrating the innovation and inspiration at the core of our museums and galleries

top:

Representatives from the National Museum of Australia accepting their National Award for Encounters: Revealing stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects from the British Museum.

top right:

Installation view of Encounters: Revealing stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects from the British Museum (National Museum of Australia, Canberra 2015-2016). right:

Museums and Galleries Naitonal Awards (MAGNA).

for all in a myriad of ways is integral to the design and philosophy of the renewed institution, and it is embedded in its community at every level.

Encounters: Revealing stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander objects from the British Museum tackled a fiendishly difficult subject with intelligence and empathy. The aims were both to reconnect Indigenous Australians with these particular objects and histories from the past and to enhance Australia’s cultural life through public discussion about our shared histories and responsibilities.

The list of shortlisted, highly commended and winning MAGNA entries is available on the Museums Australia website www.museumsaustralia.org.au [] Stephanie Hamilton is the Manager of Communications and the National Awards Co-ordinator at Museums Australia National Office.

Citation: Stephanie Hamilton, ‘Museums Australia National Awards’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(4), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter 2016, pp. 10-14.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 15

The development of conservation and training in Australia through the life of an outstanding leader

Tribute to Colin Pearson: Leader and mentor of the conservation profession in Australia

above: left:

Jan Lyall.

Colin Pearson at Defence Standards Laboratory, Melbourne, with an Endeavour cannon, 1970.

Jan Lyall

T

he museums sector in Australia was greatly saddened to hear of the passing of Dr Colin Pearson, AO, MBE, FTSE, FIIC. He died on 17 April 2016, at 75 years of age.

Colin Pearson was born on 20 January 1941 in the English Midlands, where he was also raised and educated. He came to Australia in 1967 on a three-year contract to work at the Defence Standards Laboratory (DSL) in Maribyrnong, Victoria, in the Corrosion Science Department. He had recently graduated with a PhD from the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, specialising in corrosion science. The turning point in his career came in January 1969, when he received a phone call from the Receiver of Wrecks in Queensland, asking for assistance in how to deal with the then recently found 6 cannon and cast iron ballast jettisoned by Lieutenant James Cook from the H.M.B. Endeavour in 1770. Colin jumped at the opportunity to work on such nationally significant material. The treatment was successful, and in 1970 he was awarded an MBE — Member of the Order of the British Empire — for this work, which was accomplished before he was 30. After his three years in Melbourne, Colin returned briefly to the UK in 1970.

Conservation in the early 1970s in Australia was in its fledgling stage. Very few people were even aware that it was a profession, and there were fewer than 10 professionally qualified conservators in the country.

Prior to his work on the Cook material, Colin also was unfamiliar with the conservation profession. However, his work on items of such historic significance, which was published in the journal Nature, drew national and international attention both to Colin and to conservation.

He then found himself drawn solidly into the world of conservation. An early consequence was that Colin was approached by David Ride, Director of the Western Australian Museum, seeking his interest in expanding the conservation laboratory of the WA Museum. Since he wanted to pursue a career in conservation and was keen to return to Australia, Colin readily agreed. A minor hurdle arose, however, as there was no conservation position offering an appropriate salary for someone with Colin’s reputation and qualifications; he was therefore appointed as Curator of Meteorites, with the additional responsibility of heading the conservation department.

In 1971, Colin returned to Australia to head the Conservation Department of the WA Museum, located in Fremantle, which specialised in the

16 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

The development of conservation and training in Australia through the life of an outstanding leader

treatment of maritime archaeological material from Dutch and colonial shipwrecks off the WA coast. He remained in that position for 7 years, during which he established a professional conservation laboratory with trained staff. His research work during that time embraced areas such as metals, a variety of marine archaeological materials, waterlogged wood, ceramics, rock art, and disaster planning. Colin’s appointment at curatorial level gave conservation greater status than was the case elsewhere in the country, and it also gave him insights into the best ways of relating to museum curators.

During the 1970s, awareness was growing of the parlous condition of Australian collections, due in part to the results of a UNESCO-sponsored study conducted in 1970 to examine the conservation of cultural property in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

This study was conducted by Dr Anthony (Tony) Werner, the then Keeper of the British Museum Research Laboratory. In 1973, following on from the UNESCO study, Colin organised the first national conservation seminar in Perth.

The aim of this landmark event was to achieve a national assessment of the problems affecting the preservation of cultural material in Australia and to audit the resources available for addressing urgent needs. In addition to attracting practising conservators, it drew representatives from art galleries as well as science and natural history museums. The meeting was supported by grants from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council, the Australian National Commission for UNESCO, the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the Trustees of the Western Australian Museum. It was during this meeting that the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM) was established, with Colin elected as its inaugural president. Years later he was appointed Honorary Professional Life Member of the Australian body (in 1991), and in 1995 was presented with the AICCM Inaugural Conservator of the Year award. In 2014 Colin established a grant attached to the AICCM – for Outstanding Research in the Field of Material Conservation.

Returning to the 1970s and the beginning of a national perspective on conservation: the next major event to influence the history of conservation in Australia, and Colin’s role within it, was the establishment by the Whitlam Government in April 1974 of a Committee of Inquiry on Museums and National Collections. The Inquiry, chaired by Peter H. Pigott, was tasked with examining a range of issues, including how to improve collection and conservation facilities for national material, with particular attention to research needs and training. In addition, one committee member, Professor John Mulvaney,

headed a separate planning committee investigating a Gallery of Aboriginal Australia. The reports of both committees were tabled and published together.

John Mulvaney, however, was vitally interested in conservation and championed its cause throughout the course of the Inquiry.

The recommendations relating to conservation in this comprehensive study — ever since known as the Pigott Report — were largely based on the recommendations from the earlier UNESCO study of 1970. They included a recommendation that a training program be established at the then Canberra College of Advanced Education (CCAE). Regrettably, the report was tabled just days before the dismissal of the Whitlam Government, and implementation of the Inquiry’s recommendations was deferred – in some cases no action ever resulted.

However, with a good deal of behind-the-scenes politicking and lobbying by influential people, in particular by John Mulvaney, the first Australian course in Materials Conservation was established at the CCAE at the end of 1977, with a commencement date of March 1978. Colin Pearson was appointed to head the program, and so began his career as an educator. Remaining in charge until his retirement in 2002, he was the one constant in the program’s delivery. During the 24 years when Colin managed the national training program he recruited an interesting group of staff — some more successful than others — and attracted a fascinating array of students. The students came with a broad range of backgrounds and skills: some just out of high school; some were artists; others were scientists or engineers; a few had real experience in conservation and/or museums; and others came from sundry other walks of life.

During his years of tenure, Colin had to accommodate massive changes: budget cuts; a change in institutional identity from the CCAE to the University of Canberra (UC); adjustment to a range of vice-chancellors; and evolving demands from the conservation profession. Colin established the

left:

Colin explaining the Endeavour's recovered ballast to HH The Duke of Edinburgh during a royal visit in 1970. above:

Colin at work at the Western Australian Museum.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 17

Cultural Heritage Management program to situate conservation in a wider context, and broadened the scope of the program to include Indigenous students and attention to the wider community’s collections. In its 25 years of operation, the program offered courses ranging from an Associate Diploma, Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, with progression available to PhD level. The program graduated 338 students, the majority of whom are still working in conservation — most of these nationally, but some internationally, where Canberra graduates have been welcome and widely recognised as well-trained, with a variety of skills and competencies. The conservation profession has meanwhile steadily grown in Australia over almost four decades to a stage where there are more than 600 practitioners now working in the field.

Throughout these decades, Colin continued to conduct and supervise research, and to publish papers focusing on a variety of scientific themes — particularly iron corrosion (where he first made his mark internationally), but also in the fields of rock art and paper conservation as well as training.

His magnum opus is Conservation of Marine Archaeological Objects, published by ButterworthHeinemann in the Conservation and Museology Series in 1988. Over his career Colin achieved a total of more than 120 publications.

In 1994, Colin was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for services to conservation of historical artefacts, and during the same year he was appointed Special Professor of Cultural Heritage Conservation at the University of Canberra. In the following year he was appointed a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE).

But to return to the earlier stages of this story: In the mid-1970s, with the support of the WA museum, Colin began attending international conferences, delivering papers on his research into the treatment of underwater archaeological materials. The scope of his knowledge and experience soon resulted in his appointment to the first of many positions in international organisations. In 1978, the first year of the CCAE program’s operation, he was made Coordinator of the Working Group on Waterlogged Wood, one of the many specialised Working Groups of the International Council of Museums’ International Committee for Conservation (ICOM–CC).

Over the next 26 years Colin served on two other ICOM-CC Working Groups: for Training (1981-1990); and for Preventive Conservation (2002 -2004). He also served as a member of ICOM–CC’s Directory Board (1981–1984). His position on the board was a contributing factor to Australia’s being awarded the responsibility of hosting two of the Triennial ICOM– CC Conferences — the first, realised in 1987 in Sydney;

left: Receiving the ICCROM Award, 2003, from Dr. Nicholas Stanley-Price, then DirectorGeneral of ICCROM (Rome).

the second in 2014, in Melbourne. Colin was national coordinator of the 1987 meeting, and at the latter was awarded the ICOM–CC Medal, in recognition of his vital role both within the organisation itself and in the field of conservation at large.

Another major international organisation that benefited from Colin’s expertise was ICCROM, the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, based in Rome. In the early 1980s, Colin contacted ICCROM with a proposal to develop preventive conservation programs in the Pacific region. This resulted in a joint needs assessment carried out by ICCROM and the University of Canberra from 1991 to 1993. An eventual outcome was the formation of the Pacific Islands Museums Association (PIMA), to coordinate training and networking in this region.

In 1984 Colin was elected to the ICCROM Council, on which he served in an active capacity until 1995.

He was a member of the Standards and Training Committee from 1986, and served as Vice-Chair of the committee until 1990. From 1990 to 1994, he was Chair of the reformed Academic Advisory Board, and contributed significantly to the development of ICCROM’s training strategies and program development. In this capacity, he also contributed to revising the Training Guidelines subsequently adopted by the General Assembly of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in 1993.

He was then Chair of an ad hoc ICOMOS Committee to revise the Statutes, Procedures of Council, General Assembly and Staff Regulations in 1990–1993, an activity that resulted in major revisions in ICCROM’s governance and functions. With all of these roles, Colin was a key actor in a critical period of ICCROM’s program development from the 1980s to the 1990s.

For these many important national, regional and international contributions to ICCROM, Colin was honoured with the ICCROM Award in 2003.

Colin was also an executive member of the International Institute for the Conservation of

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The development of conservation and training in Australia through the life of an outstanding leader

Historic and Artistic Work (IIC), and in May 2016 was posthumously awarded Honorary Fellowship of IIC, thereby recognising him as one of the greats of the conservation profession internationally.

Colin provided the support, mentorship and inspiration that has motivated many, and while the list of his achievements is long, many former students and colleagues, in reflecting on his life, believe that his most enduring legacy is the passion for conservation that he engendered in the hearts of generations of conservators — it is they who are now responsible for future developments in the profession. His passion, drive, kindness, sense of fun, quirky sense of humour and sheer joy of life have been widely recognised. His empathy and understanding of human nature meant that he was prepared to take risks with people, and to assist in keeping them on track when they faltered.

Significantly, he treated his students as people first and students second. Outside of class, he was always ready to party, to act the clown and to have fun. He changed the lives of many people.

Colin fought to keep the UC program viable, but factors outside of his control or influence resulted in its closure in 2002. He resigned in 2002, but was appointed Emeritus Professor (2002–2004). In his 35 years working in the conservation profession, Colin witnessed many changes. In a 2003 oral history interview conducted at the National Library of Australia (NLA),[1] Colin stated that he was proud to have been instrumental in shaping the profession; that he had no professional regrets; and that he was confident that the profession would survive, albeit in different ways.

The list of people who were significant in establishing and developing the Australian conservation profession is long. Some were active before Colin entered the scene; some assisted in his progress; some worked alongside him; and others worked for him. However Colin’s influence is so broad that he has to be considered the prime mover. In his NLA interview, he acknowledged the inspiration and mentorship of people who had supported him in his career, such as David Ride, John Mulvaney, and Gough Whitlam. He stated that he saw his career as having advanced through a mixture of chance and ambition; and that he had stayed in the conservation field by choice, though he had opportunities to move into management positions in museums and into academia.

Colin Pearson spent the last 14 years of his life living happily on the NSW South Coast, displaying the same level of passion and enthusiasm for his interests in retirement as he had done in his conservation life.

He became very involved with the local golf club, made regular contributions to the Men’s Shed, sang in the local choir, was passionate about his orchids,

top: middle: bottom: left: right:

maintained his interest in early Australian maps and books, and continued enjoying good wine and food. He and his wife Gwyn travelled extensively in Europe, and enjoyed being spectators at major tennis tournaments.

In addition to offering condolences to his wife, Gwyn Singleton, and Colin’s family, Museums Australia joins with the network of Colin Pearson’s friends and colleagues locally and worldwide in paying tribute to his manifold achievements, and in celebrating the legacy he leaves in so many streams of the field in which he dedicated such outstanding knowledge and commitment. []

above:

Colin Pearson, 2002.

Dr Jan Lyall PSM was an inaugural Master’s student in the CCAE program, having previously worked in several areas of scientific research. On leaving the program she worked for 18 years at the National Library of Australia, beginning as a paper conservator and progressing to manage the Preservation Services Branch, establishing the National Preservation Office, and finally managing the Cultural and Educational Services Division (until her retirement). As fellow NSW South Coast dwellers, she and her husband were good friends of Colin and Gwyn for the last 15 years of Colin’s life.

Citation: Jan Lyall, ‘Tribute to Colin Pearson: Leader and mentor of the conservation profession in Australia’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(4), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter 2016, pp. 15-18.

1. Colin Pearson interviewed by Jan Lyall, April 2003, for the National Library of Australia’s Oral History Program (http://catalogue.nla. gov.au/Record/2378702)

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 19

The importance and value of museums championed by UNESCO

UNESCO implements a major international initiative in support of museums

Bernice Murphy

I above:

Bernice Murphy.

n November 2015, UNESCO adopted a benchmarking ‘Recommendation on Museums’ at the General Conference in Paris of its 195 Member States (or nations and countries).

What is the importance of this new statement?

Foremost, it means raising the support level for the crucial role of museums in care and protection of the world’s cultural and natural heritage, and their integral role in social and educational development. Museums have been given a new status and affirmative action drive in UNESCO’s direct dialogue with the world’s governments and their representatives framing cultural, science and educational policies.

The topic of ‘museums’ is not new in UNESCO’s programs, activities, or Conventions in the cultural heritage bandwidth. But museums have been given a major booster effort and attention with this recent Recommendation.

Museums are crucial to the implementation of UNESCO’s pivotal ‘1970 Convention’ against illicit traffic, illegal sale or acquisition of items important to all countries’ national heritage. This was the Convention that instigated Australia’s passing of the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act of 1986.

The PMCH Act has been subject to extensive review in 2015 (guided by Shane Simpson), in preparation for drafting revised Australian legislation. This will update controls protecting Australia’s national heritage, alongside mutual responsibilities towards other nations’ heritage — notably including issues concerning import and export of Australian heritage items, cooperative customs and border controls, and regulated acquisition of foreign cultural property in our museum and gallery collections. It is likely that a bill will be introduced under the new Commonwealth Government, elected in July 2016, to update our national legislation in the movable cultural heritage domain.

Back to the 2015 UNESCO Recommendation on Museums. This represents the first time UNESCO has adopted a stand-alone Recommendation concerning museums for more than a half-century (the last, on means for ‘Rendering Museums Accessible to Everyone’, was in 1960). While the new recommendation’s contents are not revolutionary, the collective status and importance of the latest document — and the statements it brings together into a single policy framework — are highly significant in the world of cultural policy-setting by all governments participating in UNESCO (as Australia has done through a National Commission since UNESCO’s founding in 1945).

This is how UNESCO sees the impact of its new ‘instrument’ — in a recent announcement that it has

set up a High Level Forum to follow through on action: With the adoption of the 2015 Recommendation, Member States are now officially engaged in the mandatory process of implementing this standardsetting instrument. In line with the adopted programme and budget of UNESCO, the High Level Forum on Museums will: 1. Promote the implementation of this new instrument among policy makers in Member States and the global museum community; 2. Reflect on the critical issues surrounding heritage and its role in society, which will provide an opportunity to gather high level experts in the field of museums, collections and beyond on the issues of heritage.

3. Serve as an advisory body to the DirectorGeneral on museums and heritage; 4. Raise the visibility of UNESCO and Member States’ actions in the field of museums and moveable heritage.

The 2015 Recommendation on museums has (typically) a long title: ‘UNESCO Recommendation on the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections, their Diversity and their Role in Society’.

Not made for press releases! However colleagues can be assured this will soon give way to shorthand, and can be safely referred to right away as the ‘2015 UNESCO Recommendation on Museums’. All governments’ cultural heritage officials and ministers will soon be familiar with this document’s existence, currency, and expectations of action.

Why a UNESCO Recommendation and not a Convention? And what is the difference in status and effect? A Convention is at the highest level as an instrument of international regulation — equivalent to a treaty, and with similar legal effects. The Geneva Conventions (there have been four, dating back to the first in 1869) aim to protect people and non-combatants during war and armed conflicts; meanwhile the related Hague Convention (the first Conference and treaty was in 1899) aims to ensure some protective controls are maintained in warfare itself.

This includes measures for protection of cultural heritage in zones of armed conflict. Those cultural objects perhaps taken as souvenirs by our troops abroad come under scrutiny here; and by the way, our sector has been slow in advocating to the Commonwealth Government that Australia should ratify the 1999 Second Protocol to the Hague Convention.

Given UNESCO’s UN status, the continuing management of the Geneva and Hague conventions in the sphere of heritage protection is today handled by UNESCO.

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The importance and value of museums championed by UNESCO

Ratification of a Convention actually obliges a country (or Member State) to ensure that legal measures in its own jurisdiction back up the international treaty supported — as the Australian PMCH Act translates our obligations under the 1970 UNESCO Convention against illicit traffic in cultural and natural heritage.

A Recommendation is a little less onerous. It entails expected policy support implemented at Member State levels, but without foreshadowing harmonisation of laws across participating nations, as is required when States ratify a UNESCO Convention.

Since conventions are more binding in legal responsibilities, they tend to ‘take longer and be much harder’ to negotiate through to final wording and adoption by UNESCO — and sometimes measures of control are watered down in the haggling process over content and details. This explains why UNESCO opted for a Recommendation on museums — to have effect sooner and more flexibly, and not drag out the time needed to gain collective legislative intention as a Convention requires.

In the first instance, the peak bodies for the museums and galleries sector in Australia will undoubtedly take account of this new UNESCO policy instrument supporting museums — notably Museums Australia and the Councils of Directors for Museums and Art Museums, educators, conservators, and registrars. Even the Libraries and Archives sectors should also take note — since many of them have museum-like exhibitions, functions and facilities flourishing in their own adaptations of their institutions in recent years.

There’s abundant phrasing and language that can be drawn into local policy documents (and perhaps better adapted to local uses and ‘voices’ in some cases). Here are just a few snatched examples: Museums are among the most prominent institutions for safeguarding heritage in its all forms, tangible and intangible, movable or immovable.

Museums play an ever increasing role in stimulating creativity, providing opportunities for research and for formal and informal education, [and] contributing to social and human development across the world.

Museums play a fundamental role in promoting sustainable development and intercultural dialogue.

And a bit more expansively: Museums [have] intrinsic value as custodians of heritage and … also play an ever-increasing role in stimulating creativity, providing opportunities for creative and cultural industries, and for enjoyment,

thus contributing to the material and spiritual wellbeing of citizens. (from the preamble) Museums as spaces for cultural transmission, intercultural dialogue, learning, discussion and training, also play an important role in education ( formal, informal, and lifelong learning), social cohesion and sustainable development. Museums have great potential to raise public awareness of the value of cultural and natural heritage and of the responsibility of all citizens to contribute to their care and transmission. Museums also support economic development, notably through cultural and creative industries and tourism. (from the Introduction, point 2) There’s much more material to ‘mine’ for local policy development arguments and themes for use in national, state, and regional-level advocacy. There are opportunities to take up UNESCO’s affirmative action ideas for use within Australian forums, converting these internationally launched strategies for advancing the role and influence of museums in broader policy-settings nationally, and setting out local framework resources needed along with collegial support available in realising UNESCO’s new efforts in support of museums.

Finally, this is a major collaborative initiative in which ICOM has participated (in the Paris-based final drafting meetings towards the agreed text over more than a year). ICOM also features in UNESCO’s use of ICOM’s definition of museums, and ICOM’s Code of Ethics as the key reference standards in use internationally. So ICOM Australia has new opportunities here also, in promoting its position and services in reinforcing international links and professional networks for the Australian sector.

The full contents of the Recommendation on Museums are accessible for download via the UNESCO Portal site at: http://http://en.unesco.org/ [] Bernice Murphy, a former Chair of ICOM Australia, was a member of the Executive Council of ICOM (Paris) for 9 years (1995–2004, including 6 years as ICOM Vice-President).

She was Chair of the Ethics Committee of ICOM for 7 years (2004–2011), and is Editor of a forthcoming publication to mark ICOM’s 70th anniversary, Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage (Routledge UK & ICOM, 2016), for launch at the ‘ICOM2016’ triennial General Conference of ICOM in Milan (July 2016).

Citation: Bernice Murphy, ‘UNESCO implements a major international initiative in support of museums’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(4), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter 2016, pp. 19-20.

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The growing national art collection capturing Australians’ experience of war

Between history and memory: The Australian official war art scheme turns 100

Ryan Johnston

The official war art scheme

he centenary of the First World War, now approaching its midpoint, also marks the centenary of one of Australia’s most significant art collections: that of the Australian War Memorial. Consisting of almost 40,000 artworks, the Memorial’s art collection is not only an important archive of Australian art, but one of the most expansive collections of war art held anywhere in the world. Its development has also been unique among major public art collections in this country in that it was developed primarily through a commissioning program that predated the founding of the Memorial itself: Australia’s official war art scheme.

This article takes the occasion of the collection’s centenary year in 2016 to briefly recount its oftenoverlooked history, before examining how its core commissioning methodology continues and expands today.

The official war art scheme began unofficially in December 1916, when the Australian artist Will Dyson arrived on the Western Front in France. Then based in London, where he worked as a cartoonist for the socialist Daily Herald newspaper, Dyson had been among several expatriate artists (including Arthur Streeton) who agitated for Australia to initiate an official war art scheme — ­ like those introduced by both Canada and Britain earlier that year. Dyson soon grew impatient, however, and rather than wait any longer, simply volunteered with the Australian Imperial Force and travelled to the Western Front.

Dyson arrived in time to witness one of the most violent winters in recent European history. However his response wasn’t to produce war art in the thentraditional genre of large-scale battle panoramas.

Instead, he set about drawing and recording the everyday lives of Australians enduring the

T above: top:

Ryan Johnston.

Will Dyson, Welcome back to the Somme, 1918, lithograph on paper. Australian War Memorial collection.

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right: Installation view, Sidney Nolan: The Gallipoli Series.

Australian War Memorial, 2009.

unimaginable conditions of trench warfare. Despite a modest scale and his unconventional approach, the significance of Dyson’s work was recognised almost immediately, and particularly by Australia’s war correspondent and later founder of the Australian War Memorial, Charles Bean. In early 1917, and due in no small part to Bean’s influence, Dyson was retrospectively appointed Australia’s first official war artist.

The significance of this origin story is twofold. First, it demonstrates that contemporary art was always at the core of commemorative practices in Australia.

Second, it highlights how, despite its name, the official war art scheme was born not of officialdom, but of the wilful circumvention of officialdom by an artist. It was, in other words, a scheme driven by artists who immediately grasped art’s power to interpret and convey the raw human experience forming complex, difficult histories for posterity.

Despite this haphazard beginning, a further 17 artists were eventually commissioned during the remainder of WW1, followed by 35 deployed during WW2, before the scheme slowed during the Korean and Vietnam wars, with only two appointments made in each case.

The list of official artists encompasses both welland not so well-known names. The former includes Arthur Streeton, George Lambert, Nora Heysen and William Dargie, while the latter would today

include Alan Moore, Colin Colahan and Max Ragless among many others. This mix reflects the relative conservatism of the scheme, as well as the necessary expediency of commissioning artists who might have found themselves in the wrong place at the right time (i.e. already serving).

Nevertheless these idiosyncrasies have also proved to be among the key strengths of the Memorial’s collection, insofar as it offers alternative achievements to those secured in the well-established canon of Australian art preserved at other cultural institutions and in the main written histories. Indeed, the history of Australian art told at the Memorial is not a demonstration of progressive formal and conceptual innovation, nor the story of a resolute search for ‘national identity’ (the two most common and persistent art historical narratives in this country). Neither is it even strictly a ‘national’ history per se. Instead it is a diverse, loosely connected and often inconsistent corpus of responses to the lived experience of some of the most critical international events in modern history.

While deployment-based commissions have provided the backbone of the AWM collection, it was during the inter-war period that the Memorial began to develop a broader art collection to complement its earlier acquisitions. Initially this meant commissioning artists to retrospectively depict key events perhaps not already represented

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 23

clockwise from top left:

Rosie Ware at the Australian War Memorial for the official launch of her commission.

Rosie Ware, Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion, 2014-15, triptych, gold fabric paint on cotton (detail). Australian War Memorial collection.

Rosie Ware working in her studio on Thursday Island.

Photograph courtesy the artist.

in the collection; or to develop work customised for the nascent ‘museum’ component of the Memorial’s mission – such as the famously elaborate diorama series. Following WWII, however, these tendencies were increasingly absorbed into a broader collecting policy, focused on artworks that represent ‘the Australian experience of war’.

A key focus of this shift to a more inclusive (and in some respects more normative) acquisitions strategy was to review earlier collecting and its reflection of artists often overlooked (or deemed too avantgarde) for official commissions — for example, Albert Tucker and Sidney Nolan. One of the most significant acquisitions in this respect was the donation by Nolan, in 1978, of 252 works from his Gallipoli series.

Arguably the least-known and most under-researched of the artist’s major series, Nolan’s Gallipoli paintings, with their interweaving of historical events and ancient myth, and occasional expression in a mode of near-total abstraction, remain the most sustained and nuanced treatment of this emblematic historical subject by any artist.

War art today After laying dormant during Operation Desert Storm in Iraq (the only major conflict since WW1 to which an Australian artist was not deployed) the official war art scheme was reactivated in 1999. Since

that year, 11 artists, including Shaun Gladwell, Tony Albert, eX de Medici, Ben Quilty, Lyndell Brown and Charles Green, have been deployed to conflict zones, peacekeeping missions or training exercises.

In recognition of the artist-led origins of the War Art scheme, each is given a broad and open brief: to record and interpret the Australian experience of war.

In addition to these ‘embedded’ commissions, in recent years the Memorial has also returned, in a sustained manner, to the broader inter-War practice of non-deployment-based commissioning as well. The focus of such commissions is again to fill historical gaps in the collection, while also further diversifying the histories it can tell and the perspectives from which they are told. One example of this is the recent textile triptych produced by Torres Strait Islander artist Rosie Ware. Despite the fact that the Torres Strait was one of Australia’s frontlines during WWII,

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the Islander experience of that conflict was never considered as a subject for a commission at the time. To recuperate that vantage-point, Ware was commissioned to produce a major work reflecting on the war experience, its historical impact, and its legacy for Torres Strait Islanders today.

Another example of this broader approach is the large woven rug and series of paintings commissioned from Hazara-Australian artist, Khadim Ali. Now an Australian, Ali experienced the Afghanistan war at first hand as a member of the persecuted Hazara people; and he encountered Australian and allied troops on multiple occasions throughout the 2000s during the course of his everyday life in a war zone.

Khadim’s commission was a direct response to the fact that despite conflicts being one of, if not the, most significant drivers of immigration to Australia, diasporic experiences of war were still largely unrepresented within the Memorial’s collection.

The work Khadim Ali produced, which combines Hazara mythology and traditional Persian miniature painting with contemporary geo-political references, thus ensures that future generations of HazaraAustralians will have their historical experience of the Afghanistan war told at the Memorial. At the same time, its display provides broader cultural and historical context to our understanding of Australian participation in that conflict and its legacy.

The importance of telling diasporic and crosscultural histories has also motivated several other recent commissions that leverage partnership models to enhance curatorial capacity and integrity. These include a collaboration with the 4A Centre for

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 25

Contemporary Asian Art, wherein Dacchi Dang will produce a major body of new work exploring the Vietnamese Australian experience of the Vietnam war; and another with the Istanbul-based arts organisation Protocinema, wherein renowned Turkish artist Köken Ergun will develop an exhibition exploring the shared Turkish-Australian legacy of the battle of Gallipoli.

The Centenary of the First World War has also directly motivated a series of commissions and exhibitions that are broadly commemorative as opposed to specifically historical in intent. Under this aspect, such works explore wider questions as to what commemorative artistic practice might look like today in comparison with the traditions conceived a century ago. And from these vantage-points, how might such diverse practices help us interpret our histories anew?

These projects have ranged from a major tapestry conceived by Imants Tillers and realised by the Australian Tapestry Workshop, in which remembrance is figured as a foreign land, situated precariously beneath a looming black hole; to a series of paintings by David Jolly depicting the Centenary Dawn Service at Anzac Cove; to two animated diorama backdrops by Melbourne-based artist Arlo Mountford. In the latter case, hundreds of historical paintings and photographs from the Memorial’s collection were redrawn and montaged, as if to present history itself as an only partiallyformed association of distinct, often contradictory perspectives.

Among the most ambitious of these centenary projects was the ANZAC Centenary Print Portfolio,

carried out in partnership with Canberra-based Megalo Print Studio + Gallery. Inspired by the prevalence of printmaking during the First World War, and following on from the Memorial’s inauguration of an artist-in-residence program in 2013, ten artists undertook a joint residency at the Memorial and Megalo over an 18-month period. The ten artists selected for the project were: Daniel Boyd, Megan Cope, Helen Johnson, Mike Parr, and Sangeeta Sandrasegar from Australia; and Shane Cotton, Brett Graham, Fiona Jack, John Reynolds, and Sriwhana Spong from New Zealand. Each was tasked simply with producing a print that responded to the history and/or legacy of WW1 for both countries.

Each artist conducted research at the Memorial before producing their print at Megalo, under the guidance of master printmaker John Loane and with the assistance of Megalo’s expert staff. The focus of the prints is diverse, and tackles their subject from a range of very different perspectives. Some artists traced potent but often previously unknown personal histories of family service to examine how these echo in the present, while others uncovered histories of Aboriginal Australian and Maori service (or the refusal thereof ) that have previously received little official acknowledgement. Yet others worked to develop a new, contemporary commemorative vernacular that addressed the vexing task of perpetuating public memory of an event no-one alive can personally recall.

Along with developing an archive, or snapshot, of contemporary commemorative art practice, as well as

opposite page top:

Khadim Ali, Untitled from the Transition/ Evacuation series, 2015, gouache, ink, pencil and gold leaf on card. Australian War Memorial collection.

opposite page bottom: Khadim Ali, Untitled from the Transition/ Evacuation series, 2015, woven woollen carpet. Australian War Memorial collection. above:

Arlo Mountford working on The Shift – Mont St Quentin, digital animation, 2015.

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left: Imants Tillers, with Australian Tapestry Workshop Master Weavers Sue Batten, Chris Cochius, Pamela Joyce, Milena Paplinska and Cheryl Thornton, Avenue of Remembrance, 201415, cotton and wool tapestry.

Australian War Memorial collection, commissioned with the support of the Geoff and Helen Handbury Foundation. right:

Mike Parr working with John Loane on his Anzac Centenary print commission at Megalo Print Studio + Gallery, Canberra.

Photograph: Kris Kerehona.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 27

providing vehicles through which new generations could reinterpret their present, another aim of the Portfolio was to enhance international understanding and visibility of Australian and New Zealand cultures and histories. To these ends, twenty editions of the Portfolio were produced, with seventeen to be gifted to major cultural institutions around the world, including the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, the Imperial War Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Istanbul Modern in Turkey, along with others in participant nations across Europe, North America, Asia and Africa.

The official war art scheme, and the Australian War Memorial’s unique art collection, began as a means by which to provide an empathetic connection across the vast geographic divide between the events and experience of those on the battlefield and those who remained at home. A century later, this focus has been both preserved and expanded.

Today, in addition to continuing to bridge more diverse geographic divides, work produced through the scheme also weaves new connections between

the present and an ever-receding past; between the diversity of historical experiences that fall under the rubric of ‘Australian’; and, increasingly, between international but at the same time often parochial and partial public memories. [] Ryan Johnston is Head of Art at the Australian War Memorial.

Prior to joining the Memorial, Ryan worked as Acting Director of the Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria; and as a Lecturer in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Melbourne.

Citation: Ryan Johnston, ‘Between history and memory: The Australian official war art scheme turns 100’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(4), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter 2016, pp. 21-27.

28 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

Inter-generational history and social differences represented in the collections and exhibitions of museums

Class, Grit and Touch Screens

above:

Adam Paterson.

right:

Installation view of Living in Port, in the South Australian Maritime Museum exhibition.

Adam Paterson

Class in Australia

O 1. Boterro, W. 2004. ‘Class identities and the identity of class’, Sociology, 38(5), pp. 985-1003.

2. Szekeres, V. 1992. Whose cultural values? Conserving relics from major historical events: migration and multiculturalism. Unpublished paper, Australia ICOMOS Conference, November 1992.

3. Tierney, R. 1996. Migrants and class in post-war Australia.

Retrieved 1 June 2016 at <http:// www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/ interventions/migrants.htm>

ften overlooked and unnamed, class exists in Australia. It is manifested in the homes we buy, the cars we drive, the schools we attend, the type of employment we have, and what we know about culture — high, popular, or otherwise. Usually class doesn’t seem very important — perhaps because we generally surround ourselves with people with similar interests, levels of education and wealth — so we rarely feel out of place.[1] However, in unfamiliar settings, when we might be unsure about a particular aspect of culture, or fail to display evidence of desired material possessions, an uneasiness alerts us to the fact that we are out of place: out of our ‘class’.

It is somewhat irrelevant if we are markedly ‘above’ or ‘below’ those around us in the indicators we display; it is our failure to ‘fit’ that creates social discomfort.

While class exists in Australia, it is rarely talked about. When we do, it is usually described in dry terms, such as socio-economic background: a discursive blotting paper that soaks up the fluidity of class, replacing it with measurement and disconnecting it from the emotions and subtleties of lived experience. Australia’s silence on class can be attributed to many things. Perhaps we just don’t care.

Maybe the trope of Australia as ‘a classless society’ is perpetuated by a small minority whose interests it serves to obscure real social and economic differences.

Or it might be argued that as a society, we have bigger

problems to deal with today: sexism, racism, religious fanaticism, and homophobia are among the most likely candidates. Class, however, intersects with each of these, and although the injustices of class differences may be less obvious, they are nevertheless real.

An overlapping of class with other aspects of identity is evident in the experiences of Australia’s twentieth-century migrants. While researching the 1990-1991 exhibition Il Cammino Continua — The Continuing Journey, The Story of South Australian Italians, Viv Szekeres, former director of the Migration Museum of South Australia, compared the experience of an ‘Italian woman from Calabria who worked at night as a cleaner, was a wife and mother during the day and helped relatives market gardening on the weekend, with that of an Italian man from Milan who ran a successful legal practice’.[2] This exhibition traced how class relationships, along with other cultural and linguistic differences, travelled with migrants and were perpetuated in their new homes.

Furthermore, tensions often arose between more recent migrants and workers from long-established cultural groups — most notably the British and Irish — over differences in approach to industrial relations.[3] At times, however, solidarity between different cultural groups could also be found — famously the mostly non-Indigenous Australian waterside workers who supported Aboriginal land rights claims.

Movement of Australians with shared class backgrounds has also occurred across smaller scales.

Most Australian cities have undergone some form of gentrification — a process whereby formerly

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 29

industrial and working class neighbourhoods are transformed through private capital and privileged class investment from places of working class production to middle class consumption.[4] During gentrification, decisions affecting who controls and who benefits from the production of heritage are often contested by heritage professionals, longterm residents and investors. Despite such debates, working class culture affected by change is usually co-opted and presented in sanitised or caricatured forms.[5]

Gritty Port Adelaide

4. Rofe, M. 2004. ‘From ‘problem city’ to ‘promise city’: Gentrification and the Revitalisation of Newcastle’, Australian Geographical Studies, 42(2), pp. 193-206.

5. Morell, M. 2011. ‘Working class heritage without the working class: An ethnography on gentrification in Ciutat [Mallorca]’, in L. Smith, P. Shackel and G. Campbell (eds), Heritage Labour and the Working Classes, London: Routledge, pp.

283-302.

6. Newport Quays, n.d. Compass, ABC TV, 2:1-4.

7. Paterson, A. 2015. Whose values count? Class place and heritage during waterfront development, Port Adelaide South Australia. Unpublished PhD thesis, Flinders University, South Australia.

8. Paterson, Whose values count? op. cit.

9. Living in Port, on long-term view at the South Australian Maritime Museum, is an exhibition that opened on 21 August 2014 and will continue until 31 December 2020.

10. Smith, L. 2016. ‘Changing Views?

Emotional Intelligence, Registers of Engagement, and the Museum Visit’, in V. Gosselin and P. Livingstone (eds), Museums and the Past: Constructing Historical Consciousness, Vancouver: UBC Press, pp. 101-120.

I began to take a conscious and deeper interest in class while researching Port Adelaide’s past and present. As I learnt about ‘the Port’, I began to realise that much of the social dialogue around change has in some way featured aspects of class. This was true for the twenty-first century development of the Port’s post-industrial landscape as well as for nineteenthand twentieth-century industrial relations.

Between 2004 and 2011, property developers driving change, Newport Quays, downplayed Port Adelaide’s working class identity, claiming transformation of the ‘working class suburb to something trendier’.[6] Many residents were upset by the renaming of former working class suburbs, and the size and style of new buildings — changes they believed undermined the ‘heritage appeal’ of the Port, the very thing that attracted tourists. These residents might have been right. When visitors to the 2011 Port festival were asked, ‘What do you dislike about the new Port?’, 41% indicated that they disliked the style of the new buildings. The next most-common response was at the level of 28%: that there hadn’t been enough change — the Port was still run down and dirty.[7] Of course visiting heritage precincts and appreciating nineteenth-century architecture does not necessarily mean that ‘working class’ history is a desirable commodity to the majority of heritage tourists. One of the major problems with preserving and presenting working class history in postindustrial areas is that once industry ceases, the aspect of working class life that is viewed positively by outsiders — ‘productivity’ — also ceases. What is left are negative associations with dirty and sometimes toxic industries, and rundown, vacant buildings.

A slightly different point of view on the physical decline of the Port is to describe it as ‘gritty’ – a term

favoured by some of the Adelaide Port’s residents.

‘Grit’ captures the same physical and social realities of the post-industrial Port, but removes the pejorative connotations of ‘rundown’ and ‘dirty’. Grit also draws on alternative, positive attributes, among which is strength of character.[8] The importance of grit to framing the Port in a positive light, and championing more sensitive development, was demonstrated by the recent awardwinning exhibition at Harts Mill, curated by Tony Kearney and titled Grit. Although the exhibition included diverse works by artists who engaged with the theme in different ways, there were many common links to ideas of tenacity, connection to place, and a movement against sanitisation. The choice of venue, Harts Mill, also highlighted the importance of maintaining an industrial fabric within the landscape of Port Adelaide — a gritty, and yet appealing space.

Living in Port Questions about what appeals to visitors were raised during the preparation of the South Australian Maritime Museum exhibition, Living in Port, which opened as a long-term exhibition in 2014.[9] Working class history, and especially unionism and industrial relations, are by their nature political. Although museums have been advocated as ‘safe places for unsafe ideas’, there remain many differing points of view about how didactic political messages can or should be incorporated in museum exhibitions.

A strong political message has the potential to turn away visitors who might be engaged by a more subtle approach. There is also a related issue: that, despite our intentions as curators, sometimes visitors arrive and leave with the same preconceived ideas about the social ‘others’ they encounter during a museum visit.[10] Overcoming these roadblocks to understanding and empathy present a worthwhile challenge for twentyfirst century museums.

The Living in Port exhibition features several display cases that examine industrial relations, and presents positive examples of working class life. The aesthetics of the exhibition likewise deliberately reference the Port’s industrial past. The display cases are framed with graphite-coloured, textured angle iron — a gritty detail, standing in contrast to the slick joinery. Similarly the colour palate is deliberately restricted: some coloured images have been greyed; and black-and-white photographs of the Port in

30 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

Inter-generational history and social differences represented in the collections and exhibitions of museums

Although museums have been advocated as ‘safe places for unsafe ideas’, there remain many differing points of view about how didactic political messages can or should be incorporated in museum exhibitions.

right:

Walking Tour app, showing the slide feature.

the nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries are liberally employed. These images also convey gritty qualities — in particular, recording the unpaved streets, which were either dusty or muddy, and the sweaty, backbreaking work of the waterfront. A yellow highlight colour also features throughout the text and graphic panels, further offsetting the otherwise muted tones.

Walking Tour App One year after the exhibition opened in 2014, the South Australian Maritime Museum and History SA began developing a Walking Tour app to extend visitor engagement with Living in Port, taking the exhibition outside of the museum and into the streets.

Once again, issues arose around class. Questions were raised about how often industrial action should be mentioned in the tour. The choice from a curatorial point of view was initially based on the quality of the images available — how well they fitted with the existing exhibition aesthetic and the tour route. In the end, two stories were altered to emphasise lesscontroversial aspects of the Port’s history, leaving a further two locations, in a tour of 24 encounter-points, that include descriptions of industrial action.

The Walking Tour app also drew on the exhibition aesthetic, using black, grey and the yellow highlight colours, and repeating many of the grainy grey-scale images used in the exhibition. This served the purpose of linking the app to the exhibition experientially, and hopefully extending its gritty undertones. A key technical feature of the app is the inclusion of sliders — whereby the user can swipe away a black-and-white image of the Port’s past, revealing the same view in the twenty-first century.

Representing grit through a touch screen is no mean feat, and ultimately users will be the judge of whether

the app captures the Port’s rough edges, together with the tenacity, determination and playfulness of its residents. [] Adam Paterson is Curator at the South Australian Maritime Museum. Adam curated the Living in Port exhibition and walking tour app and his PhD examined the consumption of heritage in Port Adelaide during water front renewal c.2009.

Adam’s other research interests include the history and archaeology of maritime industrial communities, especially those associated with whaling and boat building.

Citation: Adam Paterson, ‘Class, Grit and Touch Screens’, in Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(4), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter 2016, pp. 28-30.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 31

Food as an entry point for cultural engagement and learning in museums

Eating up Culture: Interpreting food through public programming in museums

Craig Middleton

J

ean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, eighteenth century lawyer, politician and gastronome, famously stated, ‘Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.’[1] In contrast to the popular saying, ‘You are what you eat’, BrillatSavarin conveys something more profound. He is suggesting that that role of food, to people, is a means of their self-expression — that is, an expression of what they are or choose to be, their identity, and a way to communicate values and significance in their lives.

A colleague of mine once remarked that one of the best ways to get to know someone is by sharing a meal with them. Food has the power to bring people together. It can help us learn from one another, and it activates social situations in many different ways. It is increasingly interesting to observe how museums can interpret food through public programming to engage visitors and create meaningful experiences in the museum spaces, while also drawing on collections or a theme related to food as the core inspiration for a program. Since beginning personal research around food interpretation and museums, it has become clear that food is used in many ways in the museum space, sometimes unintentionally so.

The role of food in experience of a museum may

above:

be as simple as offering a visitor tea or coffee as they wait for a public speaker to begin an event. Or food itself may be the focus of an event — as was the case for a community cultural day the Migration Museum co-created with the Bosnian Community in South Australia in September 2015, focused on coffee. In this instance, the majority of research undertaken was on relationship building, community cultural development, and expression of cultural identity.

But it is clear that food, or a beverage in this case, was a key element of significance that pulled an event together and created meaning for both a local community and other visitors to the Museum.

It is worth noting that interpretation of food through art has a much longer history, and should be recognised for its many connections within this discussion. Food interpretation can be viewed in artistic practice in many forms: especially through the reappearance of Pronkstilleven, or the recuperated genre of stylised allegorical still life paintings developed in seventeenth-century Netherlandish painting, which has been reworked in new forms in recent contemporary art. In 2007, artist Zhang Huan wore a suit made from raw meat as part of his public performance, My New York (2007), which was also included in the Whitney Biennial.[2] From expressing social status, creating cultural events, or making

Craig Middleton.

left:

Chinese Dumplings celebrates the Chinese culture and community through food.

Part of the Migration Museum's Museum Bites program.

1. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, French lawyer, politician and gastronome (1755–1826).

2. Frock, C. ‘In Defense of Food: Recent Explorations in Contemporary Art’, Art Practical, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, 2010. http://www.artpractical.com/ review/in_defense_of_food_recent_ explorations_in_contemporary_art/

32 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

Food as an entry point for cultural engagement and learning in museums

top and left:

Tasty Tacos celebrates the Mexican culture and community through food.

Part of the Migration Museum's Museum Bites program.

political statements: art history has witnessed food used in many ways to convey strong symbolic content, religious meanings, and other messages. However, the programs discussed in the remainder of this article are very different.

The Migration Museum is a social history museum in South Australia (SA), which tells the stories of those who have made SA their home, along with those who have always had a home on this land.

The Museum explores stories of courage, resilience, happiness and even sadness in many forms. With an aim to be as inclusive as possible in its delivery, the Museum has strong relationships with diverse communities, groups and individuals whose stories are shared. Through this orientation come stories of food, of memories of Nona’s kitchen, of the special character and gatherings on feast days, and much more.

The ubiquitous presence of food across time and across cultures means that there is an abundance of content that the museum can draw on in relation to stories told. Working closely with many different community groups in South Australia, one thing is very common: food is regularly a means of identifying with and affirming a particular culture. It is a means of showing how traditional practices also shape contemporary practices and interchange within multicultural groups. This does not mean that all who identify as members of particular groups continue to practice traditional or historical food practice; but

that this element of cultural heritage remains potently alive, and carrying particular significance, even in adapted forms, within many groups and communities.

Michelle Moon writes that when interpreting food and culture, race or ethnicity, one must ensure that interpretation is clear and carefully handled in the messages conveyed. This refers to the importance of communicating that food practice is constantly changing and adapting, and not merely conveyed through static transmission from one generation to the next.[3] Moon draws attention to carefully observing a line that could easily be crossed into the realm of stereotyping culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities and their many different food practices. The problem with stereotyping of this kind is that the stereotype is not, in itself, necessarily false, but just insufficiently explained or put into context. What is interesting, and cause for celebration, about contemporary food practice is the learning that occurs between people in their interactions around food. So why not bring these experiences to museum visitors?

The Migration Museum has recently launched a program of workshops to encourage this type of social interaction and lifelong learning in the Museum’s spaces. Entitled Museum Bites, the program has been developed around food as the catalyst. The food and culture workshops, as they are referred to, are about sharing skills, knowledge, practice,

3. Moon, M. Interpreting Food in Museums and Historic Sites, Rowman & Littlefield, New York, 2016, p. 57.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 33

The ubiquitous presence of food across time and across cultures means that there is an abundance of content that the museum can draw on in relation to stories told.

stories and memories about food and its cultural significance. The program has been developed for a family audience, with a focus on children between 6 and 12 years old and their families. Included in the workshops are elements of hands-on making of traditional foods, learning and openly discussing diverse cultural food practices and how they are still occurring today, including the development and changes that have modified them over time. The program is co-created, as are many of the Museum’s programs, with members of different cultural community groups.

Not only is this a program for families and children, but also a means to build and sustain relationships with the communities, groups and individual stakeholders that surround the museum. Through a program like Museum Bites, different groups are able to build, albeit sometimes slowly, expression of their cultural identity projected to a broader audience: conveying in the process many aspects of what they can contribute — and how they are already contributing — to the enrichment of a multicultural Australia. There are further well-being benefits of co-creation achieved in this process, which promotes positive social interaction outcomes for everyone involved.

Throughout the Museum Bites program, there is also strong potential for creating connections with other museum resources: through personal and group experiences that may be linked initially to food, but also connected more broadly to objects. For example, the first instalment of the program was co-created with the small, but vibrant, Mexican community in South Australia.

The Migration Museum has limited collection objects that relate specifically to this community group; so working collaboratively with community members, objects were selected for display, including costumes, photos and children’s toys that represented Mexican identity in ways the group wanted to use to communicate their cultural character. In particular, the beautiful costumes displayed on mannequins

during the workshop showcased significant differences in dress historically. This display really helped set the scene for engaging some of the children involved. Through the stimulus of shared food and related objects, visual and practical learning were also encouraged.

Both traditions and the challenge of change may be crystallised more clearly through such encounters. One of the presenters told the audience group of a memory of her aunt who would rise in the early morning and start making corn tortillas for the whole family. She recalled the sounds of her aunt clapping the tortillas into shape, and noted that when the tortilla press was invented her aunt refused to use it because her own mother never had that option, which reinforced a memory of traditions she still holds dear today.

In overview: the combination of exchanging skills, sharing related stories and using objects to stimulate both inter-generational as well as inter-cultural learning made this workshop very meaningful for the participating children and their families, who were drawn from diverse and non-Mexican backgrounds.

Above all, such programs provide stimulating and enjoyable museum experiences for families — including ‘blended families’ — and provide exciting ways for visitors to experience the museum, its learning-resources and collection themes in innovative ways. The larger, longer-term objectives of this kind of public programming are to engage audiences at a variety of levels, to provide socially reinforcing experiences, and help stimulate repeat visits and stronger identification with museums as places for both leisure and learning. [] Craig Middleton is the Public Programs Officer at History SA and has responsibilities for creative programming and community engagement activities at the Migration Museum, a museum of History SA. Citation: Craig Middleton, ‘Eating up Culture: Interpreting food through public programming in museums’, in Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(4), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter 2016, pp. 31-33.

34 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

A World War II rescue story comes to a heritage conclusion in NSW

From Cecil Park to Parramatta: A rescued Matilda tank completes a very long journey home

right:

The team restoring ACE (clockwise from front left): Paul Martyn-Jones, Dave Crisp, Joe Tabone, Mike McGraw, Ian Hawthorn (author), Ray Jones and George Glass. Photo: Peter Rae.

far right from top: ACE's driver's compartment before restoration; driver's compartment after restoration; installing the refurbished engines.

Ian Hawthorn

W

atch this space!’ was the end of the storyline last time MA readers tuned in to this adventure.

So we left you all, like a third-rate television soap opera, suspended in the Winter 2014 edition of this Magazine, promising a climactic finish to the saga of a Matilda Tank named ACE, which had been amazingly found and re-identified, then fetched from decay on a rural property and gathered up by the patient attentions of some elder ‘tank tragics’.

Well, two years rates as a long break for advertisements. But it was a mere nanosecond in the life of a restoration project like the recovery and refurbishment of ACE. To recap for a moment: ACE is one of only three surviving Matilda Tanks left in the world today, and did service in Australia’s largest-ever armoured assault at Balikpapan in the then Dutch East Indies in July 1945. The other two will never be restored to full mobility.

The previous MAM article described how these three Balikpapan Matildas were spared the fate of their comrades in arms, destroyed at war’s end at Balikpapan. Later sold to a timber mill near Moss

Vale, the story detailed how fate intervened yet again, sparing ACE from having its engines removed to power the local timber mill, when mains electricity came to the district.

Project ACE commenced, after a fashion, in 1997, when Museum volunteers discovered by sheer chance the remains of ACE decaying in a Southern Highlands paddock for half a century. Establishing the provenance was absurdly easy — as, remarkably, the original tank number and the name given to the ‘Tilly’ by its wartime crew remained visible on the hull. With this information, even more remarkably, the then President of the Lancer Association, Les Betts, calmly stated that ACE was his Tilly, which he drove off the landing craft at Balikpapan, and that it was the first tank into the waters of the Macassar Strait.

It’s actually a little misleading to describe Les in that moment as being calm — he had to pick himself up off the floor, and struggle through some unprintable expletives before he could get his information out.

The story of Project ACE, the restoration of an item of national heritage significance, began in earnest in 2011. The article traced the ups and downs, the swings and roundabouts and the triumphs and tragedies of this remarkable project, labelled ‘unachievable’ at the outset by many naysayers. The article abruptly ended, shortly after the refurbished engines were started

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 35

on test, outside of the hull — and the first time in 50 years.

You’ll recall how the race was then on to complete the restoration of ACE in time to take its place in an historic street parade through the centre of the City of Parramatta, commemorating the outbreak of WW1, and tracing the history of ACE’s parent Regiment, the Royal NSW Lancers from its foundation in 1885.

Like the fabled little engine, we thought we could, we thought we could… Well we just couldn’t and didn’t!

ACE, and life in general, had a few more tricks ready to keep the restoration crew on its toes and patience tested. In a classic case of two steps back, a very good friend and unpaid sub-contractor-cum-Matilda parts supplier had laboured long and hard to refurbish two radiators from those recovered from ACE, plus a couple of others we had ‘come by’ over the years.

Re-installed into the tank with great precision and care, one promptly collapsed and failed, never to be resurrected.

The failure of one of our radiators was no small matter. We’d exhausted our supply, while 1930s-era Leyland bus engine radiators just don’t grow on trees.

What made life a little more challenging was that ACE’s engine design required both a left and a right radiator. So if a left radiator failed, a right replacement just wouldn’t do – it had to be a left one. Fortunately our unpaid sub-contractor-cum-benefactor came to our rescue again. He admitted that he had a suitable Leyland bus engine radiator tree growing at the back of his workshop in the Blue Mountains. Clearly the climate in that part of the world is not just suitable for growing Bilpin apples — Leyland bus engine radiators flourish as well. After some delay, a suitable radiator was ‘harvested’, sweat was wiped from the restoration crew’s collective brow, and Project ACE steamed on.

Collectors and hoarders of old military equipment can be found, often in quite remote locations, in many different parts of the world. Word travels fast around the community of military vehicle restorers, when one of these hoardes is put up for sale. To plagiarise a famous poem: ‘There was movement at the workshop, for the word had passed around that spares of old Matildas were for sale, and could be had in South Australia; but they’d cost a thousand pound, so all restorers gathered round, and headed to the fray. All the tried and noted tradies, from the workshops near and far, had mustered at the auction overnight.'

In fact, a few of these tradies were Museum volunteers from Project ACE, who had driven long and hard towing a large trailer behind them, from Sydney into South Australia. Like Imelda Marcos at a shoe sale, they bid and bought hard throughout the day until the trailer was full — way over full as it turned out because, on the return journey to

36 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

A World War II rescue story comes to a heritage conclusion in NSW

right:

A fully-restored ACE in 2016, complete with turret.

far right: ACE with her original crew in New Guinea. Photo courtesy of Royal NSW Lancers.

Sydney, they lost count of the number of trailer tyres they blew. Unknown to the local police or, more significantly, other less successful tradies returning from the auction, a valuable quantity of Matilda supplies spent a couple of days in a makeshift Ordinance Park at the side of the highway, while a larger trailer was obtained back in Sydney.

Brakes, not unimportant when trying to steer or stop a 25-ton tank, also proved troublesome. New ones had to be manufactured, for obvious reasons of safety. It’s a long and tedious job to fit new brakes, which had to be done before another historic moment arrived. But with both restored engines aboard, and the vehicle transmission re-installed into the hull, the Museum was given an early Christmas present in 2015 when ACE moved, under its own power, for the first time in 70 years.

The next time it moved, one of the brakes seized, and ACE gracelessly drove into the side of the workshop garden shed. Time-consuming stripping down of sub-assemblies, and Kepner-Tregoe style problem analysis, revealed that the brakes had been made fractionally too big and had not been properly machined. When one brake of a tracked vehicle seizes on, that vehicle has a nasty tendency to move in a circle — particularly undesirable when that vehicle is a 25-ton tank. The old brakes had to be removed and new brakes manufactured and fitted.

But enough of problems and nasty surprises,

although there were plenty more. By March 2016, Project ACE was largely done. The turret and 3-inch howitzer gun had been re-united with the hull; the tank looked resplendent in a new coat of 1945 army green paint; and all its WW2 unit and vehicle markings applied. ACE looked and sounded, most of the time, as its crew would have remembered back in 1945. The teething problems and need for re-adjustments, which must be expected with a restoration such as this, continue to keep the restoration crew from lapsing into boredom or annoying their partners by spending too much time getting in the way at home.

ACE is now undergoing extensive running-in and field testing in a paddock adjacent to our bush workshop. On the nearest available Saturday to the anniversary of the Balikpapan landings, Saturday 9 July, ACE will return home to its parent Regiment for the first time since 1945, by driving into Lancer Barracks, Parramatta, home to the 1st/15th Royal NSW Lancers for 120 years and mainland Australia’s oldest military barracks.

We hope that some of the Regiment’s WW2 veterans will be able to attend this historic event, which will feature a display of photos and videos telling the story of ACE, from 1945 through the long saga of restoration to its triumphal return, once again under its own power. In addition to being the only survivor of Australia’s largest-ever armoured assault to be

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016 37

‘There was movement at the workshop, for the word had passed around that spares of old Matildas were for sale, and could be had in South Australia; but they’d cost a thousand pound, so all restorers gathered round, and headed to the fray.'

restored to full mobility, we think it is likely the only Australian WW2 tank that saw active service in any theatre of the war to be so restored.

ACE will later be consecrated as a war memorial, to the memory of the members of the 1st Armoured Regiment (AIF) (RNSWL) who crewed Matilda Tanks like ACE in the jungles of New Guinea and Borneo.

It will remain on permanent public display at Lancer Barracks, and be available for military and community events in the Sydney Metropolitan region.

On the four Sundays following the 9th July, Museum volunteers will start and run ACE’s engines, at 11am and again at 2pm, so that members of the public can see, hear and experience a WW2 Matilda tank as its wartime crew would have known it — an entirely different experience from viewing a static hulk. They will also be able to see first-hand what an amazing job of restoration the Museum volunteers have achieved.

So that’s a good provenance and restoration story for all heritage lovers! [] Ian Hawthorn is the Promotions Officer for Royal NSW Lancers Memorial Museum.

Citation: Ian Hawthorn, ‘From Cecil Park to Parramatta: A rescued Matilda tank completes a very long journey home’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(4), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter 2016, pp. 34-37.

STOP PRESS! 21 June 2016 A hitch! Our restoration team has advised that they’ve struck significant problems with ACE’s steering and breaking mechanism, which will take time to fix. They also believe they must take ACE to a property outside of Sydney once these problems have been resolved, where they can go through more intensive trials and running-in that can’t be done at Cecil Park. ACE therefore won’t be available for public inspection until further notice. And the July launch has had to be cancelled.

I have to say that the timing is embarrassing in the extreme. I think it was Malcom Fraser who said ‘Life wasn’t meant to be easy'. Boy, did he know what he was talking about. I can usually see the funny side of most things, but I’m really struggling with this one.

For those still tuned in: I’ll keep you posted!

- Ian Hawthorn

38 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 24(4) – Winter 2016

Book review

Children’s books can successfully introduce museums: Review of Linda Gifford’s Arthur and the Curiosity

Carol Cartwright Title: Arthur and the Curiosity Author & Illustrator: Linda Gifford Hardback, 32pp.

ISBN: 9781760068387 Published: February 2016 Imprint: The Five Mile Press RRP: AUD$19.95

above:

Carol Cartwright.

This is a picture book for children under ten years.

It is clear, explicit, with delightful illustrations and well-located age-appropriate text. This makes the story easy to follow.

The story is engaging and provides a good introduction to the museum as an interesting place to visit — in this case, for a school excursion. The story introduces Ancient Egypt and mummies, dinosaurs, the human body, and volcanoes! — all intriguing ideas for young children. The narrative employs cleverly repetitive phrasing — “Move on through…” — and a dinosaur reappears on every page.

There is good text and vocabulary development, and it makes an ideal book for a parent or carer to read, or for seven-to-eight year olds to read themselves.

The font is easily readable and a good size for young readers.

There’s not a lot of museum-based story books for children on the market, so I believe there is a good place for Arthur and the Curiosity in every youngster’s bookcase. It introduces arts, culture, galleries and

museums to the younger child, setting in motion an early interest in the world of museums. It enables young leisure readers to become more curious young learners about the wider world, and to feel a little prepared and well-tuned ahead of the experiences of the ‘real’ world of museums awaiting them.

All round: An engaging and well-illustrated story, and a really good read for young children! [] Carol Cartwright, formerly a senior manager of visitor services and other programs within the Australian War Memorial, and co-ordinator of the Organising Committee for MA’s National Conference in 2013 (in Canberra), is a member of the Museums Australia National Council.

Citation: Carol Cartwright, ‘Children’s books can successfully introduce museums: Review of Linda Gifford’s Arthur and the Curiosity’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 24(4), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter 2016, p. 38.

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