Activity 2: Deliver innovative programs and experiences

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

• Share the stories of the world and Australia’s place within it at our Acton site.
• Minimum of two special exhibitions.
• Share Australia’s stories in the Asia–Pacific region.

OUR TARGETS

• Minimum of two international touring exhibitions.
• Share Australia’s stories around Australia.
• Minimum of five domestic touring exhibitions.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

• The Museum displayed 10 special exhibitions at its Acton site during 2018–19.
• The Museum toured two exhibitions of Aboriginal art internationally, with the work of master bark artists from Arnhem Land on display at four venues in China.
• The Museum continued to tour graphic-panel displays in 13 countries.
• The Museum toured 11 exhibitions domestically, with total visitation of 689,547.

Analysis

The Museum delivered a range of exhibitions this year in Canberra, across Australia and internationally, bringing the stories of Australia and the world to enthusiastic audiences.

Special exhibitions

Australian of the Year Awards 2019

Developed in collaboration with the National Australia Day Council, this annual exhibition shares the lives, aspirations and stories of the eight state Australians of the Year through objects of personal significance chosen by each recipient. The version featuring the 2019 Australians of the Year was on display at the Museum from 13 December 2018 to 17 February 2019. Due to its location in the Gandel Atrium, separate visitation statistics were not recorded for this exhibition.

Black Mist Burnt Country: Testing the Bomb: Maralinga and Australian Art

This Burrinja national touring exhibition featured artworks, from public and private collections, telling the story of British atomic testing in Australia during the 1950s. The exhibition included stunning, sometimes confronting works by more than 30 Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, including Sidney Nolan, Jonathan Kumintjarra Brown, Arthur Boyd, Rosemary Laing, Pam Debenham, Toni Robertson, Judy Watson, Hilda Moodoo, Albert Tucker and Yvonne Edwards. The exhibition was on display in the First Australians Focus Gallery from 24 August to 18 November 2018. Visitation numbers for this exhibition are included in the permanent gallery visitation figures for the First Australians gallery.

Bush Mechanics: The Exhibition

This exhibition, developed by the National Motor Museum in conjunction with Pintubi Anmatjere Warlpiri (PAW) Media, explored the importance of the car in the outback and provided insights into the life and culture of the Warlpiri people of Central Australia. The exhibition featured two of the cars from the popular Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) television series of the same name, as well as a coolamon made from a Volkswagen hubcap, a slingshot made from a tyre tube, and a ‘bush driving simulator’ for visitors to try their hand at some of the ingenious and resourceful nyurulypa, or tricks, mastered by the mechanics themselves. The exhibition opened in the First Australians Focus Gallery on 6 December 2018 and closed on 24 February 2019. Visitation numbers for this exhibition are included in the permanent gallery visitation figures for the First Australians gallery.

The Historical Expression of Chinese Art: Calligraphy and Painting from the National Museum of China

Two of China’s treasured traditions — calligraphy and painting — were celebrated in this exhibition delivered as part of our cultural exchange with the National Museum of China. The exhibition displayed exquisite paintings and calligraphy works by three important contemporary Chinese artists, Xie Yun, Xiao Lang and Wang Naizhuang. The centrepiece of the exhibition told the story of Emperor Qianlong’s 1751 tour to the southern provinces, through a replica of an extraordinary 20-metre- long, 18th-century scroll, accompanied by a large-scale animated version of the scroll. It was also an opportunity to showcase an important object from the National Historical Collection, the Museum’s Harvest of Endurance scroll, connecting the works on display with two centuries of Chinese contact with and migration to Australia. The exhibition was on display from 5 April to 28 July 2019, and received 45,805 visits up to 30 June 2019.

Lustre: Pearling & Australia

This exhibition was developed by the Western Australian Museum in partnership with Nyamba Buru Yawuru, Broome’s Yawuru Aboriginal Corporation, in close consultation with senior Yawuru, Karajarri, Bardi, Jawi and Malaya elders. The exhibition explored northern Australia’s unique pearling tradition and wove together Aboriginal, Asian and European histories of pearling in Saltwater Country, to reveal insights into one of Australia’s oldest industries. It was on display in the First Australians Focus Gallery from 23 February to 22 July 2018. Visitation numbers for this exhibition are included in the permanent gallery visitation figures for the First Australians gallery.

Painting on Country

Featuring works by five senior artists from Tjungu Palya art centre in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands of South Australia, Painting on Country brought rock art into the digital age, as part of an Indigenous-run project facilitating the transmission of knowledge between generations. It featured stunning, large-format photographs of works painted directly onto the land. The exhibition was presented in partnership with Tjungu Palya and Christina and Trevor Kennedy, with photographs by Leopold Fiala. It was on display in the First Australians Focus Gallery from 14 March to 29 September 2019. Visitation numbers for this exhibition are included in the permanent gallery visitation figures for the First Australians gallery.

Rome: City and Empire

Delivered in collaboration with the British Museum, Rome: City and Empire invited visitors to the Museum to experience more than 200 ancient objects from the British Museum’s collection documenting and celebrating the Roman Empire and its peoples. Among the treasures on display were a gold-and- jasper sealstone ring depicting Mark Antony, coins and jewellery from buried hordes recently discovered in the United Kingdom, an ancient carved marble head of a woman resembling Cleopatra and a fresco unearthed in Pompeii. The exhibition was on show from 21 September 2018 to 3 February 2019 and was visited 150,028 times.

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

This exhibition featured collections of Islamic objects from the Vatican Anima Mundi Museum, the Sharjah Museums Authority and Australian institutions. It celebrated Muslim people across the world, focusing on their daily lives, traditions and spirituality. The eclectic range of objects on display included musical instruments, armour, precious manuscripts, ceramics, jewellery and luxurious embroidered textiles. It was on show at the Museum from 20 April to 22 July 2018, and attracted 37,457 visits (12,018 visits in 2018–19).

The Studio: Collections Up Close

Focusing on some of the Museum’s most interesting and significant objects, The Studio was an innovative exhibition that made space for creative workshops and public programming inside the gallery, delivered in partnership with local artists and organisations. Through printmaking, poetry and prose workshops, and pop-up talks by curators, visitors were invited to engage with the objects in an intimate way. Objects on display included the newly acquired medicine chest issued to Douglas Mawson for the 1911–14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, a rare thylacine pelt and, most recently, a woven sculpture installation representing a scene from the ancestral Seven Sisters story. In the scene, eight life-sized tjanpi figures, created by artists from the Tjanpi Desert Weavers, depict a pivotal moment in the story as pursuer Wati Nyiru approaches the sisters, while they fool him by transforming into trees. The Studio opened on 4 April 2019, with the Seven Sisters on display from 25 May to 4 August 2019. There were 13,703 visits to The Studio in 2018–19.

Towards Equality: From Mardi Gras to Marriage

On display in the Xplore gallery, a space for boutique ‘pop-up’ exhibitions, Towards Equality celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. The exhibition featured the Love Wheels crocheted bicycle, ‘yarn bombed’ by Eloise Murphy, aka ‘Treble Maker’, and left outside then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s home during the 2017 marriage equality campaign. The exhibition was on show from 2 March 2018 to 28 May 2019. Visitation numbers for Xplore gallery exhibitions are included in the permanent gallery visitation figures.

International touring exhibitions

Old Masters: Australia’s Great Bark Artists

The Museum’s collection of Aboriginal bark paintings from Arnhem Land has travelled across China over the past 12 months, visiting the National Museum of China, Beijing (4 July to 2 September 2018); Shanghai Natural History Museum (15 November 2018 to 6 January 2019); Shenzhen Museum (13 April to 26 May 2019); and Sichuan Museum, Chengdu (26 June to 26 August 2019), for exhibitions and public programs celebrating one of the oldest continuing traditions of art. The Old Masters tour has shared Aboriginal art with significant audiences, attracting 355,311 visits during its 2018–19 tour. It has also generated opportunities for professional development and staff and cross-cultural exchanges between the Museum, Indigenous communities and host institutions in China.

Yidaki: Didjeridu and the Sound of Australia

As part of the ‘Australia Now’ Japan 2018 program, the National Museum of Australia and the South Australian Museum toured this exhibition to the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, one of the largest art festivals in the world, held in Tōkamachi-city, Niigata, Japan. The immersive exhibition explores the iconic rhythm and song of the didjeridu, as told by the Yolŋu people of north-east Arnhem Land. Indigenous community members, including celebrated artist and Yolŋu elder Djalu Gurruwiwi and his family, travelled to Japan to perform during the program. The exhibition was on display from 29 July to 17 September 2018, and received an estimated 40,000 visits.

Graphic-panel displays

In partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Museum has created tailored graphic-panel displays for local fabrication and display at embassies, missions and other venues throughout the world via Australian diplomatic posts. The graphic panels allow the Museum to share the stories of its Yiwarra Kuju: The Canning Stock Route, Old Masters: Australia’s Great Bark Artists and Evolution: Torres Strait Masks (delivered in partnership with the Gab Titui Cultural Centre) exhibitions with overseas audiences. This year, the displays were seen in 13 countries across South America, North and West Africa, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, South-East Asia and Oceania.

Domestic touring exhibitions

The Museum exceeded its target for domestic touring exhibitions, with 11 exhibitions on tour across Australia throughout the year, displayed at 15 venues.

The Art of Science: Baudin’s Voyagers 1800–1804

This exhibition, in which the Museum was a partner, featured original artworks from the collection of the Museum of Natural History, Le Havre, of Australian animals and marine life, as well as striking portraits of Aboriginal people, rare documents and hand-drawn maps. These artworks were created by Nicolas Baudin’s artists, Charles-Alexandre Lesueur and Nicolas-Martin Petit, during the 1800–04 voyage to the Southern Hemisphere of the Géographe and Naturaliste. The exhibition first opened at the South Australian Maritime Museum, Adelaide, in June 2016, and toured four national venues before going on show at the National Museum of Australia from 30 March to 24 June 2018. During the reporting period it travelled to Perth for display at the Western Australia Museum from 13 September to 9 December 2018, attracting a further 21,671 visits.

Australian of the Year Awards 2018

Developed in collaboration with the National Australia Day Council, this annual exhibition shares the lives, aspirations and stories of the eight state Australians of the Year through objects of personal significance chosen by each recipient. The exhibition was on show at the Geelong Regional Library and Heritage Centre, Victoria (9 June to 4 August 2018); and Gladstone Regional Art Gallery and Museum, Queensland (11 August to 13 October 2018); with 24,251 visits recorded across both venues.

Australian of the Year Awards 2019

Following its display at the Museum, the 2019 version of the Australian of the Year Awards exhibition travelled to the Shellharbour City Museum, New South Wales, where it was on display from 10 April to 27 May 2019, and received 5593 visits.

Evolution: Torres Strait Masks

Developed in partnership with the Gab Titui Cultural Centre on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, Evolution celebrated the continuing tradition of mask-making in the Torres Strait, exploring the form of masks as contemporary expressions of artistic and cultural revival. The exhibition was on display at the Museum of Tropical Queensland, Townsville (24 March to 2 September 2018); and the Melbourne Museum (15 September 2018 to 28 January 2019), attracting 152,370 visits.

Governor Lachlan Macquarie

This exhibition on the legacy of Governor Lachlan Macquarie is a collaboration between the Museum and Macquarie Group Limited. Since opening in 2014, the exhibition has remained on display on the ground floor of the Macquarie Group’s headquarters in Martin Place, Sydney. It has been visited 165,315 times, including 64,348 visits during 2018–19. This year, the Museum commenced plans to refurbish the exhibition.

Happy Birthday Play School: Celebrating 50 Years

This travelling exhibition was developed by the Museum and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The exhibition, which first went on show at the Museum in 2016, celebrates 50 years of Play School and features the toys, clocks, music and costumes of the show. In 2018–19 the exhibition was displayed at the Mildura Arts Centre, Victoria (26 May to 22 July 2018); Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery, Queensland (11 August to 7 October 2018); Albury Library Museum, New South Wales (1 December 2018 to 27 January 2019); and, most recently, at the National Wool Museum, Geelong, Victoria (28 June to 6 October 2019), attracting 19,013 visits during 2018–19.

I Like Aeroplane Jelly

In August 2015, the Museum opened its first display at the Canberra Airport terminal. The 1920s Model-T Ford truck used to advertise Aeroplane Jelly was the feature object of the display, along with multimedia equipment to allow airport users to search the Museum’s collections. Airport-goers are estimated to have visited the display more than 654,242 times, including 215,097 visits in 2018–19, before it closed on 5 May 2019.

Midawarr/Harvest: The Art of Mulkun Wirrpanda and John Wolseley

Stunning artworks depicting the plants of north-east Arnhem Land, by Yolŋu elder Mulkun Wirrpanda and landscape painter John Wolseley, feature in this exhibition. Mulkun’s 63 bark paintings and memorial poles depict intricately detailed Yolŋu plants, and are complemented by Wolseley’s panoramic scroll artwork of a floodplain. The exhibition, which was on show at the Museum from 17 November 2017 to 19 February 2018, has since been displayed at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (3 August 2018 to 3 March 2019) and Melbourne Museum (4 April to 14 July 2019), attracting 182,489 visits in 2018–19.

Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) celebrated the 2018 NAIDOC Week with a display of significant works from the Museum’s highly successful Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters exhibition in the Atrium of the DFAT headquarters in Barton. The display included the same selection of objects exhibited at the ASEAN Summit in Sydney during March 2018, as well as four screens displaying elders welcoming people to the exhibition. The exhibit opened on 9 July 2018 during NAIDOC Week and was on display until 10 August 2018, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. The Secretary for DFAT, Frances Adamson, held a reception on 10 July to officially open the exhibition, and Indigenous community members from the Central and Western deserts performed as part of the official proceedings. The exhibition attracted 2510 visits.

Warakurna: All the Stories Got into Our Minds and Eyes

The contemporary paintings and sculptures in this exhibition document a new art movement emerging from the Western Desert community of Warakurna. First displayed at the Museum in 2012–13, the exhibition has since travelled to 16 venues across all mainland states and territories. During 2018–19 the exhibition was displayed at the Gladstone Regional Art Gallery & Museum, Queensland (26 May to 4 August 2018); the Warwick Art Gallery, Queensland (24 August to 6 October 2018); and the Hawkesbury Regional Gallery, New South Wales (25 January to 31 March 2019), attracting 5583 visits this year.

Yidaki: Didjeridu and the Sound of Australia

Following its tour to Japan, Yidaki returned to Australia for a period of display at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) from 13 April to 7 July 2019, attracting 4381 visits.

Cultural Connections Initiative

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

• Deliver biennial Encounters Fellowships.

OUR TARGETS

• Announce up to six new Encounters fellows.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

• The Museum appointed six Encounters fellows in April 2019, and has also established the Cultural Connections program to provide opportunities for employment and skills transfer within communities.

Analysis

The Cultural Connections Initiative supports professional development, employment and capacity- strengthening projects for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural practitioners across Australia.

It comprises two complementary programs that work together to provide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities with opportunities to reinvigorate, strengthen, enrich and share their cultures.

The Encounters Fellowships program and the new Cultural Connections program seek to deliver a positive sustainable impact by investing in skills transfer and locally led projects that strengthen Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s capability to manage, maintain, interpret and share their own cultures and histories.

Encounters Fellowships program

The fellowships offer six Indigenous cultural workers the opportunity to gain professional development in a unique hands-on program that includes a placement at the National Museum of Australia and experience at partner cultural institutions in Australia, the United Kingdom and France. Applications were open during November and December 2018 with more than 40 applications received from a strong field of workers from the cultural, creative and heritage sectors.

The fellowships were advertised on Indigenous media platforms, including radio and print; a database of remote, regional and urban enterprises; and the Museum’s social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The initial announcement on the Museum’s Facebook page was the most engaged- with post for 2018–19, achieving a reach of more than 69,000. It also recorded 4864 engagements and more than 400 shares.

Six fellows were appointed in April 2019. The program will take place over several months in 2019–20, including a 12-week, face-to-face component. The fellowships program is tailored to each participant, who nominates a cultural heritage project to work on in their own community.

Cultural Connections program

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of HMB Endeavour’s voyage along the east coast of Australia, the Australian Government made funding available to several Commonwealth cultural institutions to support a suite of reflective activities and events.

The Museum is developing an exhibition that will represent both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians’ perspectives on the Endeavour voyage and its legacies (see Endeavour 250 project below). The Museum is also implementing the Cultural Connections program, designed to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural practitioners and cultural heritage aspirations.

The program seeks to foster cultural continuity and provides a significant investment in the skills and professional capabilities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural and creative workers, organisations and communities. The partner organisations in the program operate in locations along the east coast of Australia that were key sites of encounter during the Endeavour voyage. In 2018–19 the Museum identified 10 organisations as potential partners. Agreements have been signed with four organisations, and negotiations with the remaining partner organisations also progressed this year with a view to finalising agreements in 2019–20. (For more detail on these initiatives, see Case study: Cultural Connections Initiative.)

Endeavour 250 project

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

• Invest in and collaborate with communities along the east coast of Australia.
• Develop exhibition for delivery in 2020.

OUR TARGETS

• Undertake engagement with key communities.
• Develop exhibition content and commence design process.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

• Initiated relationships and commenced collaboration with eight key communities to be featured in an exhibition marking the 250th anniversary of the voyage of the HMB Endeavour up the east coast of Australia.
• Content development is well progressed and design concept finalised.

Analysis

In April 2020 the Museum will open a major temporary exhibition in Canberra to mark the 250th anniversary of the voyage of HMB Endeavour along the east coast of Australia.

Endeavour 250 (working title) will communicate both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives about the voyage and its continuing and sometimes contested legacy. It will do this by counterpointing the view from the ship, drawn from the journals of James Cook and Joseph Banks, with the view from the shore, drawn from insights from Aboriginal communities in selected locations along the east coast of Australia.

Engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and relevant organisations is central to the development of the exhibition. As well as communicating the history of the 1770 event, the Museum’s exhibition will convey the Indigenous perspective on the Cook–Endeavour story.

This year the Museum:

• finalised the exhibition’s design and content concepts, including deciding on the localities that will be represented and their related communities
• undertook visitor evaluation on the design and content concepts, which confirmed the direction the project team was taking
• engaged with communities in Cann River (relating to Point Hicks); Wallaga Lake, Narooma and Moruya (Gulaga); Port Macquarie and surrounds (Three Brothers mountains); Cairns, Cooktown and Hopevale (Endeavour River); Seventeen Seventy (Bustard Bay); Botany Bay; and Bamaga and Thursday Island (Possession Island)
• conducted a content workshop in November 2018 with Indigenous community stakeholders from communities to be featured in the exhibition
• recorded oral histories with communities related to Point Hicks, Gulaga, Three Brothers and Endeavour River
• entered into a partnership with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) to work jointly in the places featured in the exhibition to produce a series of short films about those places. The films will be scripted in collaboration with communities, and the filming process will include on-the-ground training for participants in sustainable digital storytelling techniques
• started development of an interactive that will feature botanical drawings created on board the Endeavour in 1770 and images of the original pressed specimens, together with images of the live specimens and a narrative about the Indigenous uses of different species
• engaged Zakpage Storytelling to create an immersive film installation based on key moments in the journey of the HMB Endeavour in 1770, featuring Point Hicks, Botany Bay, Endeavour River and Possession Island, places central to the voyagers’ encounters with the Australian landscape and Indigenous people. This installation will be a key part of the exhibition’s narrative.

Defining Moments program

PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

• Deliver Defining Moments Digital Classroom project.
• Develop new moments with a focus on #OnThisDay content.
• Deliver Big Ideas panels.
• Develop new Defining Moments products.

OUR TARGETS

• Release up to 30 new feature moments.
• Three panels.
• Three panels.
• Release audio tour.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

• The Museum continued work on the Defining Moments Digital Classroom project, and continued to publish new Defining Moments in Australian History content on its website with 30 new moments added.
• The Museum held three Defining Moments panel events in partnership with ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program.
• A new audio tour was launched, with 23 stops connecting to objects linked to significant moments in Australian history on display in the galleries.

Analysis

The Defining Moments in Australian History program was launched in August 2014 and aims to stimulate public discussion about the events that have been of profound significance to Australians. Last year the Museum received its largest ever donation of $1.5 million from Gandel Philanthropy, for the development of the Defining Moments Digital Classroom (DMDC) education program. In 2018–19, the project team developed a strategic brief for the project and undertook extensive research of the current schools market. A contract was awarded for the creation of two online games: one for primary school students and the other for secondary school students. Another contract was awarded for the delivery of a series of DMDC ‘youth challenges’ — one for each state and territory — designed to engage students across the nation with the historical events that have shaped Australia. The youth challenges will culminate in a national competition to be held in 2020.

The Museum continued to expand upon its existing Defining Moments website content this year, with 30 new moments published on a range of topics including the Federation drought, the first Anzac Day, Sir Jack Brabham winning the Formula One world championship and the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition. Three panel discussions were broadcast in partnership with the ABC’s Radio National Big Ideas program, on the topics of fire, innovation in Australia and the history of the LGBTQIA+ community in Australia.

In November 2018, the Museum released a new Defining Moments audio tour via the Museum app, The Loop. The revised app features 23 audio tour stops that connect objects on display in the galleries to significant moments in Australian history. The objects include a Wedgwood medallion, made in 1789 from clay from Sydney Cove, that commemorates the establishment of a convict settlement by Captain Arthur Phillip; a pocket watch carried by William John Wills when he joined Robert O’Hara Burke on their attempt to cross the continent from south to north; and a mantel clock brought to Australia in 1807 by the family of pioneer and explorer Gregory Blaxland.