Strategic priority 1: Take the lead

OUR TARGET

• Deliver integrated programming in association with public programs, major exhibitions and research.

MEASURE

• Conduct evaluations of all major exhibition and public programs for the reporting period.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

• The critically acclaimed Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters was celebrated for its innovative and immersive exhibition and programming.
• More than 5000 people celebrated Australia Day with the Museum, with activities themed around two major Indigenous exhibitions.
• The series of popular panel discussions associated with the Defining Moments in Australian History project continued.
• All major exhibitions and public programs were evaluated during the reporting period.

Analysis

The Museum delivered a wide range of events and programs throughout 2017–18, including festival days, discussion panels, symposia, lecture series, talks, performances and workshops. The Museum strives to create an inclusive range of programming that engages with the issues of the day and brings Australian history into the present. Some of the year’s highlights are described below. See also Defining Moments in Australian History for programming associated with the Defining Moments in Australian History project.

Programming associated with major exhibitions

Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters

Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters was an acclaimed Aboriginal-led exhibition that took visitors on a journey along the epic Seven Sisters Dreaming tracks, through art, Indigenous voices and innovative multimedia and other immersive displays. More than 9000 people participated in associated public programs, including curator- and host-led talks, the ‘Songlines under the stars’ film event, and the ‘Backstory’ lecture series delivered by artists, historians and curators involved in the development of the show.

A feature of the exhibition was the ‘Arts hub’, which re-created one of the many Aboriginal-owned art centres dotted across the Central and Western deserts of Australia. Art centres often function as the cultural, economic and creative heart of remote communities. Visitors were invited to imagine themselves inside a remote community art centre. Many of the artworks in the ‘Arts hub’ were available for purchase. The space also acted as a venue for art workshops, which were conducted throughout the duration of the exhibition by Martumili Artists, Maruku Arts, Warakurna Artists and Tjanpi Desert Weavers.

‘So That You Might Know Each Other’: Faith and Culture in Islam

The exhibition ‘So That You Might Know Each Other’: Faith and Culture in Islam opened on 20 April 2018. The theme of the exhibition, which included collections from the Vatican Anima Mundi Museum, the Sharjah Museums Authority and Australian museums, was a celebration of Islamic cultures across the world, and this cross-cultural celebration carried into the associated public programs for the exhibition. These included a night festival, artist workshops, film screening and an ‘Ask me anything’ program. There was an associated lecture series entitled ‘Faith and Culture’, which included a talk on Islamic textiles by Christina Sumner OAM, former curator at the Powerhouse Museum; and a talk inspired by the exhibition title, which is taken from a verse of the Holy Qur’an, by Muhammed Aksu and Dylan Esteban of the Bluestar Intercultural festival.

The last Holden

In conjunction with Holden Australia, a media event was held on 24 January to mark the end of car manufacturing in Australia and to acknowledge the donation to the Museum of one of the last vehicles to roll off the Holden production line before the Elizabeth factory in Adelaide closed on 20 October 2017. The Holden Calais joins other historically significant Holdens in the Museum’s collection such as the 1946 Holden Prototype No. 1, and the car that once belonged to prominent industrialist Essington Lewis, believed to be the first Holden sold commercially in Australia. Holden Chairman And Managing Director, Mark Bernhard, said the 2017 Commodore Calais donated to the Museum ‘celebrates the Holden manufacturing journey and the special place Commodore holds in the hearts of many Australians’.

Love Wheels

The Museum held a media event on 25 January 2018, at which then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Lucy Turnbull AO personally handed Love Wheels, a crochet-covered bicycle, to the Museum. Love Wheels was left outside the Turnbulls’ Sydney home during the historic marriage equality postal vote campaign. This powerful symbol of the ‘Yes’ campaign was created by yarn bomber Eloise Murphy, aka ‘Treble Maker’ who spoke about Love Wheels at the media event. The bicycle was displayed in the Gandel Atrium before going on longer term display in the Museum’s Xplore space in an exhibition celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Australia Day

The Museum’s 2018 Australia Day festivities comprised a daytime family festival and a live music event in the evening, drawing more than 5000 visitors to the Museum site. The program of events was themed around the two exhibitions on display at the time, Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters and Midawarr/Harvest: The Art of Mulkun Wirrpanda and John Wolseley. More than 2300 visitors took part in programmed activities, which included musical and storytelling performances by Wiradjuri Echoes. Creative activities for all age groups enabled visitors to explore the themes and visual delights of Midawarr/Harvest, including drawing native plants and seeds donated by the National Botanic Gardens. After the daytime events concluded, the Museum offered a program of live outdoor music with young Australian musicians performing in the lakeside Amphitheatre. About 1200 people remained at the lake’s edge to watch the Australia Day fireworks display.

Evaluation

The Museum continues to conduct detailed evaluation of its major exhibitions and programs. During 2017–18, exhibition closure reports evaluated the Museum’s major exhibition of the previous year, A History of the World in 100 Objects from the British Museum, and the major exhibition of 2017–18, Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters. Work has also progressed on detailed closure reports for Midawarr/Harvest and The Art of Science. These reports include visitor evaluation data gathered through surveys and interviews, and feedback from the host team.

OUR TARGETS

• Deliver online experiences.
• Develop new digital interactives or multimedia products.
• Implement Digital Strategy 2016–2020.

MEASURES

• 1.9 million online experiences.
• Three new digital interactives or multimedia products.
• Delivery of Year 2 objectives.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

• The Museum engaged with audiences across Australia and the world through social media and live-streaming and digital programs. Across its various platforms, the Museum exceeded 2.3 million engagements with its online audiences.
• The Museum launched eight new interactive and multimedia experiences for visitors in 2017–18.
• The Museum continued to implement the Digital Strategy 2016–2020.

Analysis

In addition to enhancing the experiences of visitors to the Museum in Canberra through innovative multimedia and digital apps, the Museum connects to audiences via its website, social media and other virtual platforms, bringing Australian stories to the world.

Online participation and engagement

Across its various platforms, the Museum exceeded 2.3 million engagements with online audiences. Over social media, the Museum exceeded its targets for connecting to online communities, with its posts reaching 62,241 Facebook followers (5.3 per cent above target) and 38,272 Twitter followers (4.8 per cent above target).

The Museum’s website remains the largest conduit for visitors to experience the Museum’s exhibitions, objects and stories, receiving 2.34 million total visits this year, 11 per cent more than 2016–17. The number of unique page views was 14 per cent higher than the previous year, with 5.64 million recorded. Visitation to the Defining Moments in Australian History site more than doubled, attracting 18 per cent of the total traffic (over 760,000 views). The Museum produced online content for the exhibitions Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters; Midawarr/Harvest: The Art of Mulkun Wirrpanda and John Wolseley; ‘So That You Might Know Each Other’: Faith and Culture in Islam; Towers of Tomorrow: LEGO Bricks and The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800–1804.

The Exhibitions section of the Museum’s website provides content-rich pages created for all major exhibitions, and attracted 20 per cent of the main website’s page views (over 861,000). The most popular website exhibition page was Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters (179,000 page views during its display period).

New interactive or multimedia experiences for visitors

The Museum delivered eight new onsite digital experiences for visitors in 2017–18:

• a dramatic interactive wall in the Gandel Atrium featuring key historic events identified in the Defining Moments in Australian History program
• 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 British astronaut Tim Peake
• three interactives developed for the Songlines exhibition: the immersive Dome experience re-creating the Walinynga rock art site, and a two-part digital interactive detailing the rock art at Walinynga and the creation of tjanpi (grass) figures, which are available as website interactives. The Museum won the Museums Australasia Multimedia and Publication Design award for the best program website (level B) for Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters interactives.
• the Songlines audio journey app, which was downloaded onto 8012 private devices (with a further 5106 loan devices being hired for the purpose), for a total of 73,741 sessions
• the Art of Science at the NMA app, which brought to life some of the creatures depicted in the artworks of The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800–1804 exhibition
• digital object labels developed and installed, with nearly 200,000 page views since their introduction in October 2017.

Work also commenced in 2017–18 on onsite digital experiences for delivery in the next financial year, including audio tours tailored for adults and children visiting the Rome: City and Empire exhibition.

Digital education programs

A total of 4299 engagements with the Museum occurred through its digital education programs, which included video conferences with students, virtual tours of the Museum using laptops or mobile devices, and a special Facebook Live event held in conjunction with the Melbourne Museum, reuniting Phar Lap’s heart and body (in a virtual sense) to celebrate International Museums Day. The success of this event (2800 engagements) means it will become a regular part of digital programming for 2018–19. With the generous support of Gandel Philanthropy, work started this year on the Defining Moments Digital Classroom project, a comprehensive and accessible education platform aligned to the national curriculum, that will allow students to explore Australian history through in-school interactive tools and platforms.

Digital Strategy

The Digital Strategy 2016–2020 establishes a broad five-year goal of using the Museum’s collections and content to engage Australians in defining their own identity. This year, the Museum continued to enhance its digital offerings, with a focus on two major projects: the Website Redevelopment and the Collections Online projects. The Collections Online project included enhancements to the Collection Explorer interface, the release of around 20,000 images under a Creative Commons licence or for use under the Public Domain, and the development of an application programming interface (API), all enhancing public access to and reuse of the collection. The Website Redevelopment project will deliver a new corporate website in October 2018, with much of the specification and development work occurring this year.

OUR TARGET

• Participate in collaborative research or development projects, including Australian Research Council partnerships.

MEASURE

• Key milestones during the reporting period achieved.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

• The Museum continued to participate in seven Australian Research Council (ARC) projects.

Analysis

Museum researchers continue to seek out partnerships, and be sought after as valued participants, in research projects with cultural sector and tertiary institutions. The results of these projects have been successfully applied to ongoing exhibitions and programs, such as the major exhibition Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, one of several key outputs of the ‘Alive with the Dreaming! Songlines of the Western Desert’ ARC project (2011–15).

Collaborative research projects

Museum staff participated in seven ARC projects during 2017–18:

‘Return, reconcile, renew: Understanding the history, effects and opportunities of repatriation and building an evidence base for the future’, 2013–16; renewed as a LIEF grant until 2018–19 (Australian National University, University of Melbourne, University of Tasmania, Flinders University, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Department of Communications and the Arts, Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority, University of Otago, Association on American Indian Affairs, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and Gur A Baradharaw Kod Torres Strait Sea and Land Council)

This project analyses the historical context of repatriation over the past 40 years, revealing and exploring rich Indigenous histories, the effects of repatriation, and increased understanding of the current and future role of repatriation in community development. The project’s data archive continues to be used to forge new ground in the Indigenous development of protocols for the digital archiving of, and online access to, information of high cultural sensitivity, through the ‘Restoring dignity’ project.

‘Restoring dignity: Networked knowledge for repatriation communities’, 2017–19 (Australian National University, Humboldt University, Association on American Indian Affairs, Department for Communications and the Arts, Gur A Baradharaw Kod Torres Strait Sea and Land Council, Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority, University of Amsterdam, University of Otago, Flinders University of South Australia, and Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies)

Bringing together shared research, resources and networks, this project aims to create a digital facility to preserve and make accessible a critical and extensive record of repatriation information worldwide within an Indigenous data-governance framework.

‘The relational museum and its objects’, 2015–19 (Australian National University, British Museum, and Museum of the Riverina)

This project aims to develop and trial approaches that facilitate community access to and engagements with collections and objects that have been historically dispersed across museums. In doing so, the project seeks to contribute a new theory around the ‘relational museum’, and contemporary museum practice in Australia.

‘DomeLab: An ultra-high resolution experimental fulldome’, 2015–20 (University of New South Wales, University of Western Sydney, RMIT University, University of Canberra, University of Western Australia, University of Tasmania, City University of Hong Kong, Museum of Victoria, Australian National Maritime Museum, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, AARNet Pty Ltd, and Intersect Australia Ltd)

The DomeLab project pilots the first ultra-high resolution experimental fulldome in Australia and is the technology that underpinned the Dome experience in the Songlines exhibition. It is a unique, low-cost display system with innovative aesthetics and content delivery. The project explores three themes at the forefront of new museology: interactive media, future museology, and experimental and digital humanities.

‘Understanding Australia in the age of humans: Localising the Anthropocene’, 2016–18 (University of Sydney, Australian National University, and University of New South Wales)

By examining the role museums can play in making sense of Australia’s experiences during a period of rapid planetary change and global destruction, this project moves away from an abstract understanding of these issues, to use ‘things’ — like objects, performances, stories and art — to make real the local dimensions of the idea of the Anthropocene.

‘A new theory of Aboriginal Art’, 2015–18 (University of Wollongong)

This project aims to re-evaluate Aboriginal art practices from the contemporary art perspective of relational art and transculturalism. It looks to revive an industry that, while well established, currently lacks ideas to take full advantage of the global art world economy. Oral history interviews recorded with remote and urban Aboriginal communities for the project will be archived as a research collection, and make a significant contribution to a radio documentary/podcast for Earshot on ABC Radio National.

‘Heritage of the air’, 2017–20 (Airservices Australia, Airways Museum & Civil Aviation Historical Society, SFO Museum, University of Canberra, University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, and Australian National University)

Civil aviation has transformed Australian society over the past 100 years, and the focus of this project is on investigating the people, rather than the planes, to tell the broader story of Australian communities and aviation, including Indigenous people and communities. The story will be told through heritage archives and institutional collections to produce exhibitions, accessible digital collections, and publications.

OUR TARGETS

• Key partnerships in place to support the Museum’s programs.
• Implement the International Strategy 2017–2021.
• Implement the Tourism Development Strategy 2017–2021.

MEASURES

• All agreed deliverables during the reporting period are met.
• Progress exhibition exchange in partnership with the National Museum of China.
• Deliver Year 1 objectives.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

• The Museum continued to deliver outcomes and share benefits and exchanges with a number of national and international organisations during 2017–18.
• The first phase of the partnership with the National Museum of China, the development of the bilingual Old Masters exhibition, was a focus of activity during the year, while graphic panel displays based on Museum exhibitions were exhibited in 17 countries and reached an audience of more than 36,000.
• Commenced development of new tourism products.

Analysis

Key partnerships

The Museum initiated and continued a number of important partnerships during the year, collaborating on exhibitions, undertaking joint research in common areas of interest, and facilitating knowledge sharing. In addition to the ARC projects and sponsorship partnerships reported elsewhere in this report, in 2017–18 the Museum partnered with:

• the Vatican Anima Mundi Museum and the Sharjah Museums Authority: a partnership to create the ‘So That You Might Know Each Other’: Faith and Culture in Islam exhibition
• the National Australia Day Council: an MoU to develop and tour the Australian of the Year exhibition
• the National Museum of China: an MoU for exhibition and staff exchanges
• Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery: an MoU with the Museum, the National Gallery of Australia and the Australian War Memorial to support capacity building
• the South Australian Maritime Museum, the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, the Australian National Maritime Museum and the Western Australian Museum: tour of The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800–1804 exhibition
• the Australian National University: collaborative research projects and master planning (see Collaborative Research projects above and ANU)
• Monash University: contribution to the video series Australian Journey: The Story of a Nation in 12 Objects
• the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and Princess Cruises: graphic panel displays
• Gab Titui Cultural Centre: the Evolution: Torres Strait Masks exhibition
• the German–Australian Repatriation Research Network (see German–Australian Repatriation Research Network)
• the British Museum: an MoU for the delivery of three major exhibitions: Encounters: Revealing Stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Objects from the British Museum (2015–16), A History of the World in 100 Objects from the British Museum (2016–17), and Rome: City and Empire (opens on 21 September 2018)
• the Singapore National Heritage Board: the 1942 Battle for Singapore Anniversary seminar held in October 2017
• South Australian Museum: tour Yidaki: Didjeridu and the Sound of Australia to Japan in 2018
• The Canberra Writers Festival: partner, venue and support
• DFAT Diplomatic Academy: program delivery
• Ainu Association, Japan: development of the Ainu National Museum
• Australian National University National Centre for Indigenous Studies: to develop a ‘Return, reconcile, renew’ repatriation network
• Western Australian Museum: an MoU covering the Emerging Curators initiative and future collaboration
• the Royal Flying Doctor Service: a collaboration for collections and content development
• Hokkaido University, Japan: an international research project
• Australian Antarctic Division of the Department of the Environment and Energy: an MoU for development of the Australian Antarctic Heritage Collection project (AAHCP).

International strategy

Old Masters: Australia’s Great Bark Artists

Negotiations continue with venues across China for the Old Masters: Australia’s Great Bark Artists exhibition tour. Activity for the delivery of the exhibition to the first venue, the National Museum of China, gathered pace during the year and culminated in the exhibition opening in Beijing on 3 July 2018.

Travelling graphic panel displays

In partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Museum developed tailored graphic panel displays for local fabrication and display at embassies, missions and other venues throughout the world via Australian diplomatic posts. This year the displays were seen in 17 countries by more than 36,000 people (see International travelling exhibitions).

Tourism Development Strategy

New products

The Museum commenced development of new products and itineraries, including an immersive Indigenous experience for visitors, wholesale ticketing for products, and services and tours to be released to an online market. In addition, the Museum provided cultural awareness training to front-of-house staff to cater to the needs of Chinese tourists and has incorporated Chinese labels into the digital object labels installed in the Gandel Atrium.

Reaching new markets

The Museum supports the key goal of ACT Government organisation Visit Canberra to increase interstate tourism to the territory. The Museum’s marketing targets the key markets outlined by Visit Canberra in their One Good Thing after Another strategic document, including regional New South Wales, Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore.

Marketing activities conducted by the Museum in 2017–18 included hosting tours for the Italian World Cup team, journalists and tourism industry personnel; selling tickets through accommodation partners; maintaining a presence during the annual Floriade festival; and an installation at the Canberra and Region Visitors’ Centre over the life of the Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters exhibition. The Museum hosted the September meeting of the National Capital Attractions Association (NCAA).