Audio on demand

Collector Peter Lane and curators Laina Hall and Susannah Helman discuss three stories from the Australian Journeys gallery: the emotional drama of convict tokens, Alexander Mussen’s redemption on the goldfields and Muriel McPhee’s secret trousseau.

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.

Curator Martha Sear examines the evolution of the National Museum’s Australian Journeys gallery. She provides a comprehensive overview of the stories and the objects in this gallery, which looks at Australia’s connections to the world over time.

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 Alison Mercieca tells the story of the Macassan trepang, or sea slug, industry. She considers the places connected by the Macassan voyagers from Indonesia and looks at the archaeological traces left on the Arnhem Land coast.

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.

Curator Karen Schamberger tells the story of Guna Kinne’s Latvian national dress, assembled over a period of 20 years in Latvia, Germany and Australia, and now part of the National Museum’s National Historical Collection.

The lives of a group of young sisters growing up on Baden farm at Grong Grong in country New South Wales around 1912 are revealed in a collection of journals, examined by curator Susannah Helman.

A Dollond achromatic telescope used by Captain John Gore helps to tell remarkable stories about Captain James Cook’s Pacific voyages and the development of optics and navigational techniques, according to curator Michelle Hetherington.

A set of ten rare glass plates depicting people and places in north Queensland in the mid-1800s reveal much about pioneering geologist and photographer Richard Daintree and life in the colony, according to curator Martha Sear.

An original bamboo musical instrument made by Minh Tam Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee to Australia, illustrates a meeting of European and Asian traditions and a life changed by war, explains curator Jennifer Wilson.