Dr Luke Keogh is the inaugural White Family Senior Fellow in Australian Garden History at the National Museum of Australia. Over the next two years, Luke will lead a program that explores and shares the history, influences and future trends in Australian gardening.
Using the Museum’s collection, programming and physical spaces to inform his work, Luke will collaborate with leading gardening and conservation centres and experts including the Australian Garden History Society.
The Museum’s Garden of Australian Dreams and the Christina and Trevor Kennedy Garden will provide inspiration for audiences to engage with ideas of place and Country, and learn how regeneration and conservation through sustainable gardening can have a positive influence as our climate changes.
Inaugural Fellow Luke Keogh
Dr Luke Keogh is an academic, curator and historian with a deep interest in gardens and the environment. He is an active researcher in the museums and collections fields and has published widely on the role of museums in the Anthropocene.
Luke is the author of The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World, which recently won the NSW Premier’s General History Prize and was Garden Media Guild’s Garden Book of the Year.
He has previously been a fellow of the National Library of Australia, the Deutsches Museum in Munich and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.
Most recently, Luke was the senior curator at the National Wool Museum in Geelong, where he was lead curator of the award-winning On the Land: Our Story Retold. In 2021, the exhibition won awards at both the Museums and Galleries National Awards (MAGNA) and the Australian Museums and Galleries Awards Victoria (AMAGA).
Luke is currently a lecturer in History at Deakin University and will continue this work alongside his fellowship at the Museum.
About the White family and the fellowship
As a family of pastoralists, the Whites are inspired by this country's landscape, unique gardens and flora.
The White family has partnered with the National Museum of Australia to create the Senior Fellow in Australian Garden History program, with the aim of exploring how gardens play a role in sustainability and conservation.
Acknowledgements
The National Museum gratefully acknowledges the generous donation by the White family that makes possible the Senior Fellow in Australian Garden History program.
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