Annual Report 2021–2022, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory
Tabled Paper 809
Tabled Papers for 14th Assembly 2020 -; Tabled Papers; ParliamentNT
2023-03-21
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory under Standing Order 240. Where copyright subsists with a third party it remains with the original owner and permission may be required to reuse the material.
English
Tabled papers
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
Darwin
application/pdf
Copyright
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/902391
https://hdl.handle.net/10070/902392
62 During the NT Writers Festival, the curator participated in a poetry recital in the Dr Colin Jack-Hinton Maritime Gallery and accompanied three authors of Northern Territory history in a well-attended panel discussion entitled Tall but True Territory Tales. The curator also launched the book Pride and Revelation Stories from the CDU Nursing Museum by Janie Mason AM at the Northern Territory Library in May 2022. The need for a self-guided tour brochure of Fannie Bay Gaol was addressed this year by the curator. Research was conducted on the history of each extant building and foundation, resulting in an informative brochure and accompanying map. The brochure has been highly successful as a popular souvenir and a tool to educate and guide visitors. Much work was carried out in the Unruly Days exhibition with facsimiles made of fragile objects, and object labels revised. At the Defence of Darwin Experience, the Sunk exhibition featuring the ship Don Isidro was replaced in the Temporary Display Space. The new exhibition, The Track Strategic Lifeline to the Top End, details the history of the wartime Stuart and Barkly Highways that became vital logistical supply routes to Darwin following its bombing in February 1942. The story is told through a selection of 24 images, a historic sign and the grilles of various military trucks that drove The Track during World War II. As 2021 marked the 150th anniversary of laying the undersea telegraph cable to Darwin and 2022 the completion of the Overland Telegraph Line, the Curator of Territory History sat on two steering committees established by the Heritage Branch to manage the response to these historic events. On 20 November 2021 at Jervois Park, a sign unveiling was held to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the successful laying of the undersea cable from Java to Darwin. The curator put on a small public display of historic telegraph material to commemorate this occasion. The curator spent the first two weeks of August 2021 driving a World War II army jeep from Alice Springs to Darwin as part of Back To The Track 2021. This event commemorated the importance of the Stuart Highway during the war, along with the men who built and maintained it and the soldiers and vehicles that travelled along it. For much of the year, the Curator of Territory History was seconded to the Pygmy Blue Whale skeleton project and has spent significant time working on preparing the bones for installation and display. Research has also been carried out on the early history of the discovery, acquisition and display of this 22-metre-long skeleton. In January 2022, as part of the Australia Day Honours, the Curator of Territory History was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to the museums and galleries sector. A small part of the Back To The Track 2021 convoy of ex-military vehicles parked on the original Stuart Highway at Karlu Karlu/Devils Marbles