Winners 2012

Collection Management: Volunteer

Winner

Queanbeyan and District Historical Museum Society (significance assessment, cataloguing, de-accessioning and storage project)

Highly commended

Canowindra Historical Society & Museum (significance assessment of objects in the collection associated with the farming of lucerne)

Port Macquarie Historical Society and Museum (preservation needs assessment)

Collection Management: 1-4 staff

Winner

Corrective Services Museum, Cooma (professional digitisation and storage project)

Highly commended

Broken Hill City Council (construction of a purpose-built storage facility for the collection)

Grafton Regional Gallery (research project into the collection of Clarence Valley photographs by John William Lindt and publication of Dreaming the Past: the Lindt Story)

Orange, Blayney and Cabonne Councils (The Sustainable Collections Project – a regional museum program spanning the Central West Region of NSW, supporting volunteers to conserve NSW heritage through museums, collections, exhibitions, and programs)

Collection Management: 5-20 staff

Winner

Western Plains Cultural Centre (completion of a major deacessioning project involving extensive community consultation)

Exhibitions & Public Engagement: Volunteers

Winner

Port of Yamba Historical Society (Ghosts of WW1 – 101 Local Heroes, a thoughtful exhibition that told the personal stories of the soldiers listed on the Yamba and Palmer Is. Honour Roll and the lasting consequences for themselves and their families left at home)

Highly commended

Port Macquarie Historical Society and Museum (temporary exhibition that focussed on life at home during WW2, to coincide with the travelling exhibition, ‘There’s a War on’)

Exhibitions & Public Engagement: 1-4 staff

Winner

Goulburn Regional Art Gallery (a series of art workshops at the Goulburn Correctional Centre’s Indigenous Cultural Centre and an exhibition of works by both the teachers and their inmate students titled People We Know – Places We’ve Been, curated by Djon Mundine with 7 visiting Indigenous artists)

Highly commended

Museum of Human Disease (iHeart Jazz was an interactive public engagement event involving audience member heart beats, improvised jazz and large scale ultra-sound projections, marketed via social media and the web and re-staged at Jurassic Lounge)

Exhibitions & Public Engagement: 5-20 staff

Winner

The Nicholson Museum/Sydney University Museums (’50 Objects 50 Stories’ an exhibition telling the stories of 50 objects from the Nicholson Collection. The exhibition coincided with a book launch ’50 Objects 50 Stories: Extraordinary Curiosities from the Nicholson Museum’, and with the ABC News 24 TV series, ‘Extraordinary Curiosities’)

Highly commended

Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (a national community engagement project supporting Australian Muslim women artists to develop work for a major exhibition titled ‘No Added Sugar’)

Mosman Art Gallery (a solo exhibition by artist Ken Done commissioned by Mosman Art Gallery to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Sydney Harbour in 2012, including a 48 page bi-lingual catalogue with essays on the historical event and the exhibition’s place in critical art making in Australia)

Exhibitions & Public Engagement: Over 20 staff

Winner

Australian National Maritime Museum (‘Nawi – exploring Australia’s Indigenous watercraft’ a major project about the value of sharing knowledge across disciplines, communities, generations and cultures, emphasising the significance of canoe-making in sustaining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and revitalising culture)

Education & Audience Development: 1-4 staff

Winner

Grafton Regional Gallery (‘Towards the Stratosphere’ was a curated creative drawing project that involved over 150 students from six schools in the Grafton area and resulted in an exhibition and range of public programs)

Highly commended

Age of Fishes Museum (The acoustiguides; a hand held professional audio tour developed by the Age Of Fishes Museum to tell the story of the discovery and excavation of the 360 million year old Canowindra fish fossils)

Auburn City Council Peacock Gallery (The Warrami Art project invited eight Aboriginal artists from Western Sydney to create work in response to the history and Aboriginal cultural heritage of the Duck River, resulting in an  exhibition and public program that engaged with the local community and children from local disadvantaged schools)

Education & Audience Development: 5-20 staff

Winner

Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery (‘Stencils Past, Stencil Last’; artist residency project with Mini Graff, Jason Wing and local Aboriginal artists of all ages that included workshops and resulted in an exhibition that reflected on contemporary Aboriginal issues and culture and acknowledged the long history of stencil art as a significant traditional practice)

Highly commended

Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre (Niu Warrior, a contemporary art exhibition and comprehensive education and engagement program that explored the cultural values and ideas of the Pacific and involved South West Sydney schools, community groups and families)

Hawkesbury Regional Gallery (Performance in the Gallery was a regular series of workshops held in the main gallery exhibition space for people with mild to moderate physical and intellectual disabilities, enabling participants to enjoy art as a stimulus to creative expression)

Education & Audience Development: Over 20 staff

Winner

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (The Bella Room; an interactive space designed to engage and inspire people with physical, emotional, behavioural and intellectual disabilities to explore contemporary art through sensory experience)

Individual Achievement: Paid staff

Winner

Elizabeth Ann Macgregor OBE, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art

Dr Nick Lomb, Curator of Astronomy, horology, meteorology and surveying, Sydney Observatory (part of the Powerhouse Museum)

Individual Achievement: Volunteers

Winner

Ken Smith, Past President and Secretary, Parramatta & District Historical Society