Exhibition reviews
Image of Grid Caldwell's SE5A

Knights of the sky
Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre

review by Peter Stanley

The Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre's publicity declares it to be 'the best museum in the world'. Peter Stanley explores that claim, asking whether it is justifiable, and what being a museum necessarily entails.

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Image of Old Parliament House

The Museum of Australian Democracy

review by Marian Sawer

The Museum of Australian Democracy, housed in the Old Parliament House, Canberra, is a welcome addition to Canberra, and is doing a lot of things very well.

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Image of Northern Party at the South Magnetic Pole

Quest for the south magnetic pole

review by Alessandro Antonello

The year 2009 marked the centenary of the 'discovery' of the south magnetic pole in Antarctica by members of Ernest Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition. This small, tightly focused, but illuminating exhibition celebrates the anniversary.

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Image of woman on boat

An Edwardian summer

review by Penny Russell

An Edwardian Summer is a celebration of the photography of Arthur Wigram Allen, a prosperous Sydney lawyer and enthusiastic amateur photographer whose photos of family and friends, domestic scenes and pageants, shipwrecks and celebrities, picnics and leisurely days on the beach provide a striking visual record of an era.

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Image of Hyde Park Barracks

Convict Sydney

review by Alan Atkinson

The current display at Hyde Park Barracks invites visitors to explore Australia's convict history, learn about the daily lives of convicts and discover the intriguing stories of some of the 50,000 convicts who passed through the barracks doors between 1819 and 1848.

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Image of the Slave Lodge

Iziko Museums

review by Guy Hansen

Iziko is a network of national museums located in Cape Town, South Africa. In a society struggling to entrench democratic reforms, and confronted by serious economic and social inequality, professionals and academics at Iziko have been exploring questions about the social purpose of museums and re-examining the relevance and meaning of collections created during the apartheid era.

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Image of entrance to exhibition

The 80s are back

review by Fiona Allon

What makes something count as a subject worthy of historical inquiry? And when does it become part of history? How many years must elapse for the present to become a past that can enter the space of the museum as an object of nostalgia? The Powerhouse Museum exhibition, The 80s Are Back, returns us to what can only be called the very recent past. It's a decade that a generation of people can still vividly remember.

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Image of astronomical quadrant

Exploration & Endeavour
The Royal Society of London and the South Seas

review by Paul Arthur

This exhibition celebrates the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society of London and the South Seas. However, rather than documenting the history of the society, it focuses on an assortment of artefacts that characterise the era of antipodean exploration.

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Canning Stock Route Country, by Patrick Tjungurrayi

Yiwarra Kuju
The Canning Stock Route

review by Geoffrey Bolton

Yiwarra Kuju tells the story of the Canning Stock Route's impact on Aboriginal people, and the importance of the Country that surrounds it, through the works of senior and emerging artists and the stories of traditional custodians.

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