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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.
ISSN 1833-4946