Audio on demand

Museum consultant Brian Crozier considers how material culture might be interpreted by museums for popular rather than academic audiences. He examines the cultural contributions that museums may make in the study of history.

Researcher, author and Irishman Richard Reid and photographer Brendon Kelson examine the role of the Irish in Australia, to be featured in a forthcoming National Museum book, The Scattered Children of St Patrick.

Curator Kirsten Wehner outlines the themes of the new National Museum of Australia gallery, Creating a Country (now Landmarks). It will look broadly at the history of Australia since European colonisation of the continent in the late eighteenth century.

Guna Kinne and Carmelo Mirabelli’s stories feature in the National Museum’s Australian Journeys gallery. They join curator Karen Schamberger and broadcaster Sylvie Stern in a discussion about their lives in Europe and Australia.

Historian Adele discusses cookbooks as historial resources, drawing on the National Museum’s collection in her time as a Visiting Fellow with the Museum’s Centre for Historical Research.

The AE Smith string quartet held by the National Museum is outlined by conservator Robin Tait. She also discusses the conservation strategy of display and occasional use for functional museum objects.

Renowned art collector Janet Holmes à Court discusses the deeply moving work of Aboriginal artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye with National Museum curator Margo Neale.

Curator Martha Sear discusses objects in the National Historical Collection that once belonged to Sir George Reid, a key figure in Australia’s Federation-era political history. Reid’s story features in the Australian Journeys gallery.

Curator Rebecca Nason discusses two Staffordshire figurines of nineteenth-century Irish nationalist, parliamentarian and convict William Smith O’Brien. His story is told in the Australian Journeys gallery.

Four National Museum of Australia curators provide examples of material culture research into a boomerang, tools used by Hmong gardeners, a dress worn at the opening of Parliament House in 1927 and objects from the Snowy Hydro-Electric Scheme.