19 July 2017

The Black Swan: A Western Australian Icon

In developing a new environmental history gallery, the National Museum of Australia is keen to explore how human societies connect with the natural world, including other species, weather systems and the deep geological past. There are many non-human species that shape the way human societies are organised and function, but occasionally species capture a much larger space within the collective imagination.
Categories black swan/Museum practice/Western Australia
2 June 2017

Catering for a crowd

Constructed and operating in a newly established capital city, Canberra’s Old Parliament House was designed to be a self-contained building, providing for the needs for members of parliament, staff and visitors. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Refreshment Rooms (CPRR), located in the building’s South Wing, were used to prepare and serve hundreds of meals each day when parliament was sitting, and to cater for grand balls and events for visiting dignitaries. Stories of the...
Categories Food
24 May 2017

Seaweed projections at IlluminARTe

On Saturday 29th April, the village of Picton came alive with the annual IlluminARTe Wollondilly Festival. The festival had a family atmosphere and featured market stalls, street musicians, a lantern parade, fireworks and building projections. A number of artists were invited to create projections onto the buildings including Julie Ryder, our artist-in-residence from 2016. Julie chose to use images from our seaweed album and related collections to inform her artwork.
Categories Uncategorised
21 May 2017

Bunya Power

On Thursday morning, as my plane taxied across the tarmac of Canberra airport, thirsty jet engines warming themselves for the flight north, I began reading Ray Kerkhove’s extraordinary document, The Great Bunya Gathering: Early Accounts. This compilation of stories and memories of the bunya trees of southeast Queensland captures and conveys something of the power of these majestic rainforest beings, of their capacities to draw people towards their towering trunks and vast crowns, to feast regularly on their abundant offerings...
Categories Science
4 May 2017

Freewheeling spins into Canberra

The National Museum of Australia celebrated the history of cycling in Australia with the official launch on the 13th April of its exhibition Freewheeling: Cycling in Australia. The exhibition has been travelling around Australia since November 2014 and this is the final venue of the tour. It was a privilege to host Michael Milton, paralympic cyclist, and Gillian Helyar from Pedal Power ACT as the guest speakers at the launch. Michael and Gillian enjoyed a preview...
Categories Cycling/Uncategorised
6 April 2017

A piece of the ‘goodwill rock’

Tonight, a lunar surface fragment from the National Museum’s collection will appear in the Stargazing Live series, hosted by Professor Brian Cox and Julia Zemiro. Broadcast on the ABC from the Siding Spring Observatory, near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, the moon rock fragment will offer stories from the Moon, NASA astronauts and international politics, as leading scientists and personalities tackle astronomy’s most intriguing questions and seek to inspire Australians to explore our solar system. Next...
Categories Science/Space/Uncategorised
22 March 2017

Moth-Man prophecies: reflections from the field

On a mild evening in March, distinguished archaeologist Dr Josephine Flood spoke to a full house in the Museum’s Visions Theatre, at an event co-hosted by the Canberra Archaeological Society and the Museum Friends. Best known for her research regarding the region’s Moth Hunters and dating occupation in places like the Birrigai Rock Shelter to 25,000 years, Dr Flood’s work has bestowed significant scientific value on Aboriginal history in the region.
Categories Landscapes/Museum practice/Uncategorised
7 March 2017

A new chapter

On Friday, the Namatjira Legacy Trust was officially launched at the National Museum of Australia. The Museum was pleased to host granddaughters of Albert Namatjira and trustees, Lenie Namatjira and Gloria Pannka, Clara Inkamala, musician Shelli Morris, and Big hART’s Director Scott Rankin and Producer Sophia Marinos, with other special guests to celebrate the occasion. The event also marked the official launch of the Museum’s Ntaria (Hermannsburg) exhibit in the Landmarks...
Categories Art/Museum practice/Uncategorised
12 January 2017

Continuing connections

One of the joys of working at a museum is the variety of stories you uncover when researching objects. Another is the pleasure of meeting people who can illuminate and elaborate on those stories and objects. Recently, when developing a display for our Journeys gallery, I was fortunate enough to work with both a wonderful collection and an engaged and very connected individual. The story relates to the experiences of...
Categories Horses/Museum practice/Uncategorised
16 November 2016

Eden and the Spring Winds

  The Spring Winds – as they always do – trigger new beginnings. My name is Jilda Andrews and I am the newly appointed ‘audience advocate’ for the National Museum’s new environmental history gallery, known so far as Life in Australia. My background is within the Museum’s Learning Services and Community Outreach team, developing and facilitating public programs that help non-traditional museum audiences gain access to the Museum. I am thrilled to...
Categories Museum practice/Uncategorised
20 September 2016

Art and science under the microscope

In 1910, Miss Gladys Roberts became one of the first employees of the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine in Townsville, Queensland. She was employed to illustrate publications and research papers by the institute staff on a casual basis until 1930, depicting parasites and micro organisms as seen through a microscope. Colour plates of her illustrations were published in the ‘Report of the Institute for 1911′, and a copy of that report, open to show...
Categories Art/Science/Uncategorised
8 September 2016

An epic journey revisited

On the 19th of December 1982, ‘The Quiet Achiever’, a solar powered car driven by Hans Tholstrup, departed Perth’s Scarborough Beach on a journey across the country. It arrived at the Sydney Opera House on the 7th of January 1983, becoming the first vehicle to be driven across a continent using nothing more than solar energy. Now, a Japanese team has begun a project to build a ‘Quiet Achiever II’.
Categories Climate change/Science/Solar power
22 August 2016

The Path of the Bogong: Land & People

My name is Patrick Bailey. This is the final of three posts that I’ve prepared as an intern at the National Museum of Australia (and as part of the Australian National Internship Program), which explores how the interaction between human and non-human forces in Southern NSW and the ACT combine to form continual and changing expressions of community identity. This last post will explore how the land has been influenced by people and formed ongoing...
Categories Uncategorised
12 August 2016

Mapping a rugged landscape

In 2012 the Museum acquired a small collection associated with the distinguished career of the Surveyor-General of Hobart, James Sprent. The collection includes a large and very early map of Tasmania, Sprent’s degree certificate, a Reeves parallel ruler, three small certificates for short courses at the University of Glasgow and a wooden box which is likely to have held Sprent’s drawing instruments. The map was the first accurate map of the colony and the first to reflect the colony’s...
Categories Landscapes/Science/Uncategorised
9 August 2016

The Path of the Bogong – Festivals of the Mountains

My name is Patrick Bailey. This is the second of three posts that I’ve prepared as an intern at the National Museum of Australia (and as part of the Australian National Internship Program), which explores how the interaction between human and non-human forces in the alpine region of Southern NSW and the ACT combine to form continual and changing expressions of community identity across time. This second post explores Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal practices...
Categories Uncategorised