Hello everybody. It’s absolutely a pleasure and a privilege
for me to be able to stand up here tonight
and talk a little bit about Landmarks
what we have been doing for the past six years developing it.
I would like to begin by thanking
Matilda [House] very much for the welcome
and also acknowledging the traditional owners of this country.
It’s a particularly important thing,
given we are talking about an object that is about place,
to remember that we are standing in a very specific place
with a long and complex history.
I want to begin with a little story from the exhibition.
In 1878 a veteran overlander Alfred Giles,
together with 40 men, 12,000 sheep and 2,500 cattle,
set out from Adelaide for the north
of what is now the Northern Territory.
Fifteen months later he arrived on the Katherine River where he found springs -
as he wrote – ‘of beautiful fresh water, rich black soil
and a ready supply of building materials’.
In this promising country Giles constructed
a substantial house and food store and established Springvale station.
Around a year later Giles married a young woman called Mary Sprigg,
took her home to Springvale where they set up home.
They evidently planned to settle in
and create a civilised life for themselves
in the remote region, for when Mary left Adelaide
she took with her silver tableware, her silver thimble
and, most surprisingly to me, a pair of opera glasses.
I’m not too sure how much use she got from the latter.
In Landmarks these small domestic items feature in an exhibit
exploring the history of Springvale and nearby Elsey station.
They are displayed alongside much less glamorous items:
a pile of seeds from the annual black spear grasses which are common in the region;
a Springvale fence post, eaten hollow by termites
and recovered by curator George Main from the river, I think,
and from nearby Elsey Aboriginal weapons made from salvaged metal.
These objects, when you put them together,
suggest much of the complex character
of the Giles’ experiences at Springvale
and indeed the longer history of pastoralism in the region.
I think the silverware evokes Alfred and Mary’s aspirations and hopes
for the new pastoral enterprise,
but the other objects embody the harsh realities of life at Springvale.
For after sticking it out for 15 years
the Giles abandoned Springvale
defeated by attacks by local Jawoyn and Dagoman people defending their country,
by ticks that caused fever in the cattle,
by grass seeds and poisonous plants that killed sheep,
and by termites that destroyed timber structures and ruined their food stores.
Springvale is one of 34 places from across Australia
that are featured in the new gallery.
Springvale sits together with exhibits focussing on
Springfield station near Goulburn, New South Wales;
Bowen Downs in central Queensland;
and Derby in the west Kimberley in north Western Australia.
Together these exhibits explore how pastoralism has unfolded
and developed in different localities around Australia,
telling histories of settlers moving
their stock into Australia’s diverse grasslands,
of fighting and negotiating with Aboriginal people for access to country
of shaping and responding to varying climates and ecologies
and developing vast pastoral enterprises
that have contributed centrally to Australia’s economy.
As you will know if you read your invitation to tonight carefully
Landmarks presents a very broad history of Australia
beginning in the late eighteenth century at Sydney Cove.
It addresses ten themes in Australia’s past,
with each theme exploring an idea,
an ambition or a challenge for life in Australia.
It begins with the founding of the first British colonies on Australian shores,
then traces journeys of exploration around and across the continent.
It then follows the growth of pastoral enterprises,
the discovery of gold and the development of democracy;
themes of social justice
and the quest for scientific understanding;
the expansion of agriculture, mining and manufacturing;
and finishing with the emergence
of the highly urbanised nation that we know today.
As Danny mentioned, the gallery doesn’t try to tell the whole story on each of these themes
but investigates how each is played out in particular locales
as people have responded to the challenges of living in this continent
and developed as a result distinctive kinds of communities.
In developing the gallery we were concerned
to move away from any abstract national history,
any assertion that Australia is a singular entity
or that Australians are all the same.
We have aimed, instead, to look at how Australians live in particular places,
engaging with local landscapes, ecologies and technologies
as they build lives and societies.
Landmarks explores the diversity of our lives across the continent
while also drawing out connections
and similarities between Australian lives in different places.
Someone recently commented to me,
when I took them on a preview tour of a not-yet finished Landmarks,
that the gallery has a lot to say about work -
I thought she was just talking about my life
but apparently not.
It is true that the gallery has a lot to say
about the generations of Australians who have laboured to build
the places that shape our lives today.
One of our central curatorial aims -
and one we talked about a lot
during the process of developing the gallery -
was the way in which we could create in Landmarks
an account of the past
that treats the actions and undertakings of our ancestors
with understanding and respect
and, indeed, which allows to cherish their efforts
to transform the world around them.
When you look at Australian history
with open eyes and an open heart,
it is not always easy to embrace the past.
At the heart of Landmarks is the truth
that European settlement of Australia
has been everywhere an act of colonisation,
that the building of new communities has always involved acts
through which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
were alienated from and dispossessed of their country.
Similarly, Landmarks is centrally concerned
with the difficult history of settler interactions with Australian environments,
with disquieting stories of how people,
as they have sought to bend the continent to their use,
have transformed often beyond recognition or recovery
Australia’s long-established and unique environments.
While Landmarks engages centrally with these difficult histories,
the gallery’s focus on place has also enabled us
to draw out how these histories are complex and nuanced,
shaped by the decisions and actions of individuals
finding their way at particular times and places.
There are many histories of violence
between Indigenous and settler peoples,
but there are also stories of generosity,
accommodation and friendship.
There are many histories of often unwitting
destruction of ecologies and species
but also stories of people learning about their country,
of restoring soils and lands to health,
and of developing new ways to work as part of larger ecosystems.
Our aim in Landmarks is to generate historical understanding,
to invite visitors to look at Australia’s past in all its complexity
and to understand how and why people acted
to create the world we now inhabit.
At the gallery entrance a quote
from former Governor-General Sir William Deane
sits on the wall.
It's been a bit of a motto for me in developing the gallery.
It reads: 'The past is never fully gone.
'It is absorbed into the present and the future.
'It stays to shape what we are and what we do.'
As visitors move around Landmarks and discover
the histories of places from around Australia,
I hope that they will begin to understand
how the actions of those have gone before us
have shaped the world we now live in.
I also hope that they will be encouraged to see
that this process of making the world is ongoing,
that we are all actors in never-ending processes
of making places and we have a responsibility
and the opportunity to do so.
I do hope that Landmarks will empower visitors
to recognise and create such opportunities
to shape and reshape their own places.
Landmarks emerges from the premise that one of the Museum’s key roles
is to create connections between past and present,
between people from around Australia,
and between and through objects and collections.
As Danny and Andrew have mentioned,
the gallery brings together a huge range of objects,
about 1500 of all shapes, sizes and materials to tell its history of Australia.
It includes both iconic and lesser-known items
that have long been part of the Museum’s National Historical Collection.
These have been brought together along with generous new donations
and other collections acquired during the course of developing the gallery,
and of course objects kindly lent for the exhibition by both institutions
and by many individuals and families.
Over the past six years that it has taken us to develop the gallery,
members of the curatorial team have journeyed
to many of the places that we feature in it -
and indeed to quite a few that we couldn’t fit
into the first iteration of the exhibition.
I have one curator in mind who told me a story
about how when she finished her art history degree
she hoped that she would be going to Paris and London
but instead I sent her off to Cape River in northern Queensland.
At each place that the curators have visited,
they have been privileged to meet
with members of the local communities,
to talk with them about the project,
to learn about the character of life in their place,
and to identify collections that might evoke their stories.
I know there were quite a few Australians,
some of whom are here tonight,
who I think were quite surprised
to find a National Museum curator turning up on their doorstep
to ask them how they might like to be represented in Landmarks.
Quite a few didn’t know even know the Museum existed
when we first talked to them.
But so many of those people that we have talked to over the past years
have responded with incredible generosity,
sharing memories and stories,
digging out family heirlooms and old photograph albums,
driving curators around to look at places on their properties,
opening local museums when they should have been at home on a Sunday,
and contributing in many other ways.
I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you very much
to all those people in the many different places
who have supported Landmarks with their collections,
their hospitality, their experience and their enthusiasm.
I hope that the gallery stands as a fitting tribute
to this long and I hope ongoing collaboration.
[applause]
Late one afternoon about six years ago,
then senior curator and now assistant director Mat Trinca and I sat in his office
putting the finishing touches on the exhibition brief for the gallery
that we are opening tonight.
It’s been a long road since that afternoon,
and I would like to acknowledge Mat's role
particularly in shepherding this project from its inception to its opening.
[applause]
I would like to thank our director Andrew
for his embrace of the project since joining the Museum
and also Danny Gilbert since becoming our council chair.
I would also say thank you and congratulations
to my colleagues across the institution
and from the many design, production, fabrication,
construction, et cetera companies who have worked on the project.
I know you have often worked well above and beyond the call of duty,
and I have found your enthusiasm and expertise continuously inspiring.
[applause]
However, since I get the pleasure of standing up here
I do have to say a special thank you
to my fellow Landmarks curators, who over many years have displayed
incredible intelligence, creativity and patience,
and an inspiring passion for the project
and for the Museum.
It’s been a pleasure to share this adventure with you all.
I also need to thank their families and friends,
who are often unsung
but who have helped this project in so many tangible ways.
Someone’s father went and collected mud and water from the Yarra River.
Somebody’s friend offered to stand
as a racegoer at the Melbourne Cup for an interactive.
Someone has gone and found some Mitchell grasses
that managed to survive the Queensland floods
and put them in a box to send down to us.
And others have kept the house and minded the children
while I have sent their parents to all sorts of places.
Thank you.
[applause]
It simply remains for me to welcome you to the exhibition.
Landmarks is one of the Museum’s signature
statements about Australian history:
an exhibition gallery that will remain
at the heart of the institution for many years to come.
Tonight marks the end of one phase of its life,
its coming out -
or as I sometimes feel like we are sending a child off to high school -
but of course our gathering tonight
also marks the beginning of the next phase of the gallery's life.
Landmarks will continue to grow and develop over the coming years -
as I like to think, coming alive
as visitors engage with its places, its collections and its stories,
and begin to add their own to its history of Australia.
Thank you.
[applause]