Exploring Melbourne Museum: Indigenous Culture, History, And Antique Collections

Background

Discuss about the Excursion in Melbourne Museum.

As a social history researcher, I have chosen Melbourne Museum for my site of excursion. This is because I want to collect information about the indigenous people of Australia. I want to know about the social life of the aboriginal people. Apart from collecting information about the native people, I will also try to focus on other antique things, which is collected by the eminent curators.  A museum always identifies the historical things but there are also interesting things in the museum, which reflects the present social life of the people. At first, there is an overall background of the Melbourne Museum of Australia, and then I will focus on some specific aspects of the museum. After that, I have given various aspects of the indigenous people of Australia.

However, there are different types of museum in Australia. They are: – National Museum of Australia, Australian War of Museum, Powerhouse Museum, Canberra Railway Museum, Queensland Art Gallery , Immigration museum of India and others. I have visited the Melbourne Museum.  There are various things to visit in this museum, the first is the Children’s gallery, in this gallery infant and toddlers from the age of 0 to 5 years can play here. This is not only a playground for the children but it is also a place to explore many things. There are things which enable the children to learn and discover, for example there is a artificial fossils in a artificial dinosaur garden, there is a discovery garden and there are some antique things in the museum and finally there is a ‘camouflage’ disco where children can dance.

There is an option to participate in the Night-Hack at Melbourne Museum where everybody gives ideas to improve the health and well being of the visitors. It is considered as a exhibition based on the human body. The dinosaur walk consists of 17 prehistoric animals.  Out of these 17 animals there are 10 dinosaurs, three pterosaurs, one mammal like reptile and Australian Megafuna (Fitzgerald and Kool 2015).   There are other existing animals such as Mamenchisaurus, Amargasaurus, Quetzalcoaltus, Diptrodon and Megalania.  There are animations of these prehistoric animals regarding their habitation and their struggle to live in this world.

One can also find artificial models of ‘the Wonders of the World’, for example there is the Great Wall of China, the Empire State Building, Arc de Triomphe and others. This helps the students and the children to visualize the things, which they have learnt in their history book. The children and the students can also involve them to make these models.

My Site

Ben Quilty who was an official war artist in the Afghanistan series painted images, which reflected the sorrow and happiness of the world. These portraits reveal the psychological and emotional impact of the war on the soldiers. He spent three weeks talking to the Australian service men and women in Afghanistan. He went there in October 2011 as an official war artist. He was mainly appointed to record and interpret the experiences of Australians deployed as part of Operation Slipper in Kabul, Kandahar, and Tarin Kot in Afghanistan and at Al Minhad Airbase in the United Arab Emirates.

There is also a provision for the children and the students to observe the designs and creations of the young generation (Daniel et al. 2015). For example, there is fashion, graphic and product design, print lay out, electronic projects created by VCE Food and Technology and Systems Engineering. There are school programmers and resources, early years learning and processional learning for educators and MV teacher’s subscription for the teachers. There is a Bunjilka garden, which specifies some important facts of the aboriginal people. 

The most interesting thing, which I liked in the museum, is the accessibility to learn various things for the teacher, students and the visitors. The students able to learn things like history and culture of Australia. There is also a scope for the students, the teachers and the researchers to know in details about the aboriginal people. We can know about the origin, the habitats of the aboriginal people. Everybody can know about the indigenous cultures of the Australia. There is a History and Technological tour, which shows the Victoria’s cultural and technological history.  There also exists the Humanities Departments at Museums Victoria conducts various seminars, which returns to the Melbourne Museum Theatre in 2017.There, are various expert curators appointed for collecting antique things and preserve for the future (Golding and Modest  2013).

Then, there is a scope to learn practically about the ‘rock cycle’. There is a programme for the student in which the teams research, create and have to share a short film about it.  Each team use rocks and display in Dynamic Earth. Generally, toddlers and infants do not want to learn in a traditional way but in the museum, there is scope for them to learn things more interestingly (Summit 2017) . There are different programs for the infants. The first is the Granddad’s shed in which the babies can learn about the nature, the history and culture of the Koorie people and able to know about ancestors and the families. The infants also get to know about the aboriginal peoples and their way of living daily lives. There are also option for the kids for learning about the insects.

History of Australia’s Indigenous People

 In this part of the report, I will try to explain in detail description about the aboriginal people.

Bunjilaka is part of Melbourne museum.  The museum has facts about the indigenous people.  First people narrate the history of the Aboriginal Victory from its origin to till date. It mainly portrays the voices, the thoughts and the linguistic aspect of the Koorie community. There is also an exhibition of the history, culture and the victories of Victoria’s original people. People can hear the voice of the members of this community aging from 8 to 72 years in the deep listening space (Johnson and Walliss 2014). Bunjil who is considered as the moiety ancestor, the wedged- tailed eagle of the aboriginal people can be also heard (Clarke 2016). It is said that the native people of Australia used to take shelter in the nest of this bird.  One can also be aware of the 38 languages of the Victoria people and also the tradition and customs of the Koorie people.  There is also information about the fact that in what angles the lives of the aboriginal people changed after the European settlement (Robertson et al. 2016). The art and craftwork of the aboriginal tribe are also displayed in this museum.

There is also a serene and beautiful indigenous garden in the museum.   There are various types of indigenous plants and trees planted in this garden. These specific plants and trees are  used for the traditional purpose of the indigenous people.  The visitors also have the opportunity to observe the sculptures and caves consisting of the indigenous paintings and live animals (Sloggett 2016). Self guided trails traverse through the Milarri Garden and into the forest gallery where one can experience the forest environment so that the students can learn about the flora and fauna of the indigenous people.

The fish short – finned eels are found in the Milarri Pond, which is also a part of fauna of the natives people of Australia. This helps the student to learn the significance of this aquatic life during the period of the aboriginal people (Jamies and Fitzpatrick 2014).  This species also helps to maintain the chain of ecosystem.  The short finned-eel also migrates from the east coast of the Australia and migrates back again when the time comes again (Clarke 2015) .

Wurreka, the etched zinc wall by Judy Watson contains many information about the aboriginal people.  She has worked collectively along the aboriginal communities and the artists who had worked libelously for the construction of this zinc wall.   She also took the initiative to go to the aboriginal sites and communicated with the aboriginal people. It can be said that that the community people also cooperated with the Australian Print workshop and recommended for inclusion of symbols. Finally, 74 panels with etched designs were produced, each showing imagery from Aboriginal cultural heritage and landscapes of Victoria (Witcomb 2014).

Conclusion

As a social history researcher, I have to able collect lots of information the habitation of the young people. I have able to come across the thinking process of the aboriginal people from listening the dialogues of the aboriginal people, which was taken by the interviewers.  I have able to know about the sufferings of the native people after the European settlement.  After the arrival of the Europeans the rights of this native people are hugely hampered.  So, we can also able to know about their shared struggle for sustaining their rights. Apart from history, there are other things  to learn such as about the insects, pre-historic animals,  about different floras and faunas. There are various provisions for learning and making projects by the students and the toddlers. There are also programmes for the teachers and the scholars.

Reference 

Clarke, P.A., 2015. The Aboriginal ethnobotany of the South East of South Australia region. Part 1: seasonal life and material culture. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 139(2), pp.216-246.

Clarke, P.A., 2016. Birds and the Spirit World of the Lower Murray, South Australia. Journal of Ethnobiology, 36(4), pp.746-764.

Daniel, L., Williamson, T., Soebarto, V. and Chen, D., 2015. Learning from thermal mavericks in Australia: comfort studies in Melbourne and Darwin. Architectural Science Review, 58(1), pp.57-66.

Fitzgerald, E.M. and Kool, L., 2015. The first fossil sea turtles (Testudines: Cheloniidae) from the Cenozoic of Australia. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, 39(1), pp.142-148.

Golding, V. and Modest, W. eds., 2013. Museums and Communities: Curators, collections and collaboration. A&C Black.

Jamieson, A.N.D.R.E.W. and Fitzpatrick, D.I.A.N.N.E., 2014. Sustainable Management Strategies for Near Eastern Archaeological Collections. Archaeology of Fire—Conservation, Preservation and Site Management—Bioarchaeology in the Ancient Near East, 3, pp.251-68.

Johnson, F. and Walliss, J., 2014. Reconciling History: Inserting an Indigenous Space into the University of Melbourne Campus. Landscape Review, 15(1).

Robertson, Z., Gifford, S., McMichael, C. and Correa-Velez, I., 2016. Through their eyes: seeing experiences of settlement in photographs taken by refugee background youth in Melbourne, Australia. Visual Studies, 31(1), pp.34-49.

Sloggett, R., 2016. Recalibrating meaning and building context for collections of distantiated stone tools. World Archaeology, 48(2), pp.311-324.

Summit, J.I., Gemfair, A.G.T.A., Carbons, N., Pegmatites, G. and St Marie, F., 2017. Learning Opportunities.

Witcomb, A., 2014. ” Look, Listen and Feel”: The first peoples exhibition at the Bunjilaka Gallery, Melbourne Museum. Thema La revue des Musées de la civilistion, 1, pp.49-62.