It has been an extremely busy and successful year for the National Museum, which has solidified its reputation as a leading cultural institution — a museum that challenges, empowers and innovates. An ambitious schedule of exhibitions, events and programs brought Australian stories to the nation and to the world. This year saw the Museum stage the award-winning Indigenous-led exhibition Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, collaborate with museums across the world to bring the best in international exhibitions to Australia, and receive its largest ever donation from a single philanthropic donor to support the development of new digital education products and reinvigoration of the Acton site.
A highlight has been the redevelopment of the Museum’s Main Hall, which in May 2018 was renamed the Gandel Atrium, thanks to the generosity of prominent Australian philanthropists John Gandel AC and Pauline Gandel. As a result of the Gandels’ commitment and vision, the Gandel Atrium has been reimagined with striking displays of new objects, a contemporary aerial sculpture, Bogong Moth, by acclaimed Victorian-based Indigenous artist Reko Rennie, and an interactive display showcasing the Museum’s headline Defining Moments in Australian History project.
The Gandels, through Gandel Philanthropy, have donated $1.5 million to support a range of activities, including the Defining Moments Digital Classroom initiative, which will take Australian history into classrooms nationwide. These activities illustrate the Museum’s commitment to work with the private and philanthropic sectors to grow our brand and expand outreach using innovative funding and delivery models. The digital classroom extends the Museum’s Defining Moments in Australian History project, first launched in 2014, a wide-ranging program that examines events, people and places of significance to all Australians. In addition to identifying key historical events and promulgating them through the Museum’s website and online channels, the popular Defining Moments panel discussions have continued this year, hosted at the Museum and broadcast to a national audience on the ABC’s Big Ideas radio program.
The Museum grew its historical collection by securing several items that have captured the public imagination. In January, the now iconic Love Wheels bicycle was donated by then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Ms Lucy Turnbull AO. The decorated bicycle was left outside the Turnbulls’ Sydney home during the recent marriage equality postal vote campaign. This powerful symbol of the ‘Yes’ campaign was created by yarn bomber Eloise Murphy, aka ‘Treble Maker’. The Hon Mr Turnbull, Ms Turnbull and Ms Murphy spoke about Love Wheels at a media event held at the Museum on 25 January 2018. The bicycle was displayed in the Gandel Atrium for a week before featuring in the Museum’s Xplore space in an exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
The Museum also acquired one of the last vehicles to roll off the Holden production line before the Elizabeth factory in Adelaide closed on 20 October 2017, marking the end of Australian-made car manufacturing. The Museum welcomed the car into its collection in January 2018, where it joined other historically significant Holdens, such as the 1946 Holden Prototype No. 1, and Essington Lewis’s 1949 48-215 model Holden, believed to be the first Holden sold commercially. Another newly acquired vehicle, a Repco BT23A-1 racing car, drew enormous visitor interest when temporarily displayed in the Gandel Atrium. Designed, built and driven by three-time Formula One world champion Sir Jack Brabham it is a significant artefact in the history of motor racing in Australia.
Exhibitions are always a big part of the Museum’s mission, and the program for this year was once again exemplary. The award-winning Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters was truly innovative in both its creation and its presentation, emerging from an Australian Research Council project initiated by Aboriginal elders wanting to share their ancient creation stories and preserve them for future generations. The exhibition recorded 98,855 visits, making it the Museum’s most successful Indigenous exhibition. Its immersive approach and interactive digital experiences were recognised at the annual Museums and Galleries National Awards, with the Museum receiving the prestigious Best in Show award for most outstanding exhibition of the year (which the Museum also won in 2016 for Encounters: Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum). The positive feedback and public acclaim for Songlines has cemented the Museum’s reputation as a place where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can share their stories in a trusted, compelling and creative way.
The Museum’s collaborative approach to exhibition development was further demonstrated in other successful exhibition partnerships with national and international cultural institutions. These included exhibitions at the Museum’s main building in Canberra as well as its domestic and international touring program, which continues to grow from strength to strength.
‘So That You Might Know Each Other’: Faith and Culture in Islam was produced in partnership with the Sharjah Museums Authority and the Vatican Anima Mundi Museum. This beautiful exhibition brought together more than 100 objects from collections held in the Vatican, the Emirate of Sharjah and Australia to give audiences a glimpse into the lives and cultures of Islamic communities across Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. The exhibition was complemented by an extensive range of public programs, including the Faith and Culture lecture series developed in collaboration with local Islamic communities.
Another notable collaboration resulted in The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800–1804, an exhibition developed through a partnership with museums across Australia and the Museum of Natural History, Le Havre, France. This exhibition featured early European illustrations of Australian animals and marine life, as well as striking portraits of Aboriginal people, rare documents and hand-drawn maps from Nicolas Baudin’s expedition to Australia.
The Museum was privileged to host Lustre: Pearling & Australia in the First Australians Focus Gallery. The exhibition was developed by the Western Australian Museum in partnership with Nyamba Buru Yawuru, Broome’s Yawuru Aboriginal Corporation, and in close consultation with senior Yawuru, Karajarri, Bardi, Jawi and Malaya elders. The exhibition wove together Aboriginal, Asian and European histories of pearling in Saltwater Country to reveal insights into one of the nation’s oldest and grittiest industries. Guests at the launch were invited to the Garden of Australian Dreams to watch performances by dancers and singers from Bardi, Karajarri and Yawuru groups.
Exhibitions that travelled to venues around Australia this year included Evolution: Torres Strait Masks (in partnership with the Gab Titui Cultural Centre), Australian of the Year Awards 2018 (a collaboration with the National Australia Day Council) and Happy Birthday Play School! Celebrating 50 Years (produced with the assistance of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Following on from last year’s tour of One Road: Aboriginal Art from Australia’s Deserts to Japan, the Museum secured several venues in China for its spectacular Old Masters: Australia’s Great Bark Artists exhibition. The exhibition opened at the National Museum of China in Beijing in July 2018, with more venues to follow.
Collaborations extend beyond exhibitions, and the Museum entered into two new partnerships with the South Australian and Western Australian museums to develop joint programming, collaborative exhibition development, and other opportunities to share resources. The Museum intends to extend this approach through a series of similar partnerships with other key institutions around the nation and internationally.
The Museum has unveiled its new Master Plan, which articulates an inspired vision for the 21st century and beyond — a national museum at the crossroads of material and digital realms, embracing both. The Museum’s Master Plan to 2030 envisages an institution at the core of the emerging knowledge economy, showcasing its collection alongside the country’s most compelling and creative digital assets and experiences. The ambition is to double the Museum’s size and expand its range of public experiences through the redevelopment of its permanent galleries, extension of its programs and exhibitions, and further development of its site at Acton Peninsula.
Delivery of the Master Plan is already underway, with the major gallery redevelopment program progressing at pace. The Museum commenced redevelopment of its Forecourt in May 2018, reshaping and reinvigorating the building’s outdoor entry spaces. The transformed Forecourt will be an immersive sensory representation of the Australian landscape. At the heart of the space will be a physical ‘Welcome to country’ from Canberra’s local host nations. Words of welcome, spelt out in languages from across the globe, will sit near the main doors of the Museum and greet guests as they enter the Gandel Atrium, where their own journey will unfold.
Museum staff have also begun design work for the Discovery Centre, scheduled to open in 2021. Part of the Museum’s Discovery@NMA program, the Discovery Centre will stimulate imagination and curiosity by empowering young people to engage with the rich and diverse stories of Australia in new ways through play-based and hands-on experiences. It will be a place for visitors to share, make and shape stories, and develop their sense of belonging. During the year, the Museum consulted extensively on the design and purpose of the Discovery Centre, to ensure that it will provide an exciting and enriching experience for children visiting the Museum.
The Museum’s commitment to the use of digital technologies and compelling media experiences to tell the nation’s stories was demonstrated by the year’s virtual reality programming. More than 25,000 people enjoyed two new virtual reality experiences, the Emmy-award-winning Collisions by filmmaker and artist Lynette Wallworth, and Space Descent, narrated by astronaut Tim Peake. A huge drawcard to the Songlines exhibition was the state-of-the-art digital dome, which recreated a significant rock art site within its curved surfaces.
The Museum remains committed to its research program, with a strong focus in 2017–18 on repatriation. In May 2018, the Museum co-hosted the Long Journey Home: The Repatriation of Indigenous Remains across the Frontiers of Asia and the Pacific symposium, with the Australian National University’s School of Culture, History and Language; College of Asia and the Pacific; and the National Centre for Indigenous Studies. The symposium brought together Indigenous people involved in repatriation efforts here and overseas to share their experiences and knowledge. Discussions also continued with the Ainu people of Japan, the Ainu Cultural Museum and Hokkaido University about the return of a set of remains from the Museum.
Significantly, 2017 was the year the remains of the 42,000-year-old man publicly known as ‘Mungo Man’ were able to be returned to traditional owners. On 15 November, the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage coordinated the return of the remains to the Willandra Repatriation Traditional Owners Committee, comprised of traditional owners of the Willandra region, the Mutthi Mutthi, Paakantyi and Ngiyampaa peoples. The remains were formally repatriated with an apology from the Australian National University in 2015, and custodianship was temporarily transferred to the Museum so the community could prepare for their return. The small and private handover ceremony took place at the Museum, presided over by the local host nations, with custodianship of the remains, as well as 104 other ancestral remains, transferred to the community for return to country. Following the ceremony, the remains journeyed back to Mungo National Park where a ‘Welcome to country’ and repatriation ceremony were held.
The Museum received funding in the 2017 Budget, through the Public Service Modernisation Fund, of $8.9 million over three financial years to establish a Cultural and Corporate Shared Services Centre (CCSSC). Over the course of the year, the Museum has seen growth in the number of agencies procuring services from this initiative, a testament both to the industry need for a tailored service for small cultural institutions, and to the quality of services on offer. The CCSSC enables cultural institutions to deliver on their great work by supporting their operational activities, allowing them to give greater focus to their core business of creating engaging and varied cultural programs and collections.
A key focus of the Museum’s work this year was continuing to improve digital accessibility to the Museum’s collections. The Museum delivered a number of projects to support public access to its collections over the course of 2017–18, including further work on the Collections Online and the Collections Digitisation projects. The Museum also achieved its target for increasing the collections available online through Collection Explorer, the front-end web program through which visitors can access information about the Museum’s collections, reaching 55 per cent of collections available during the reporting period.
As our membership and donation programs continue to grow, we are looking at new ways to further engage with our active community of Museum Friends. The support and feedback offered by our Friends members drives the Museum to keep challenging and reinventing itself and ensuring it provides a refreshing and vibrant experience for all visitors.
The Museum’s achievements over the past year are a testament to the dedication, care and creativity of its staff and volunteers. The delivery of award-winning exhibitions, innovations in technology and efficiency, and major redevelopment milestones reflect the hard work and ambition of Museum staff to make Australian stories come alive. The continued contribution of its team of volunteers to the Museum’s endeavours cannot be underestimated. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all staff and volunteers for their commitment and continued enthusiasm for their work.
In just a few short years the Museum will celebrate its 20th anniversary of the opening of the Acton Peninsula site. Over the past two decades, the Museum has established itself as a leader within the Australian cultural sector, thanks to its focus on excellence and innovation. To better support its vision and new strategic priorities, this year the Museum undertook a review of its organisational structure. The outcomes of the review, and the subsequent organisational restructure, will allow the Museum to better realise its ambitions and to deliver on its new priorities in a financially sustainable way.
The Museum appreciates the unwavering encouragement of its Council, and in particular of the Chair, David Jones. The guidance and commitment of Council and its committees to the work of the Museum have been a crucial factor in its success. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Minister for Communications and the Arts, Senator the Hon Mitch Fifield, and his office, for their continued support, as well as that of our colleagues in the Department of Communications and the Arts.
Dr Mathew Trinca
Director, National Museum of Australia
September 2018