The Last Moments collection: a treasure trove of stories
How does a set of old photos hold the power to transform a visitor’s experience of our building?
Articles tagged with: collection
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The Director’s pick: Finders Keepers Collectors and their Stories
MoAD Director Daryl Karp picks five objects from our exhibition and tells us why these are her favourites.
Welcome to Australia
New citizens are welcomed with heart-felt messages from our visitors.
Hanging on the Computerphone
The Telecom Computerphone had its glorious moment in the sun and on desks in the mid-1980s. It promised an all in one office solution of computer combined with phone *mind blown*...
Isobel and the koala
Nearly 60 years ago a young Scottish immigrant, Isobel Saxelby, was given a toy koala, a symbol of a new life and her new home in Australia. It remained a treasured possession until ‘Kookie’, as Isobel called it, found a new home in the museum.
International Museum Day 2017
International Museum Day 2017 is based around the theme ‘Museums and contested histories: Saying the unspeakable in museums.’ Like all museums, sometimes at MoAD we need to talk about difficult subjects, and we use the power of the items in our collection to help us do that.
A Horse’s Tale: Bill, Bertie and Bairnsdale 303
Horses were a vital part of the Parliament House opening ceremonies. What did they make of all the fuss? Three photographs of Bill, the horse ridden in Canberra by the Duke of York, provide a fresh insight into the day’s events.
The Thieving Diva: Behind the scenes of the opening ceremony at Parliament House
Hilda Abbott was a distinguished guest whose recollections reveal that behind the public performance, VIPs are only people after all.
Flags, snags and bags: Putting the finishing touches on the opening of Parliament House
It took determination, ingenuity and a small piece of string to get Parliament House finished in time for its grand opening in 1927.
Charley’s Choice: The breastplate of Charley, King of Burran
An object now in display in our Designing Democracy gallery documents one man’s life-or-death decision on Australia’s pastoral frontier.
A very Green collection
In 2015 Greens leader, Senator Christine Milne, resigned as party leader and ended her decades-long career in formal politics. As something of a self-confessed hoarder, she distributed some of her material, relics from her long and successful career, to museums and libraries. MoAD has been lucky to receive a large collection of her items, and we’ve found that it reveals some fascinating insights into her life and work.
A Present from the Past: Sir Robert Menzies and the Fishes Royal
In 1965 Queen Elizabeth gave Sir Robert Menzies a gift so special that he had to contemplate burying it on a beach. What was it?
Would you vote for conscription? Five objects to help you decide
A hundred years ago, Billy Hughes put the question of overseas conscription to the Australian people, in the hopes of gaining support for his plan to boost troop numbers in Europe. If you had been a voter in 1916, what would your answer be? Here are five objects from the Museum’s collection to help you make up your mind the way they helped Australian voters a century ago.
A Projector for a Prime Minister
Robert Menzies was prime minister for almost two decades in total, but he was also a man of many interests and talents. One of his interests was in film, and in 1954 he was presented with a gift that let him indulge that passion. The Menzies projector is a new acquisition into the MOAD collection that sheds light onto Menzies’ life outside politics.
Deakin’s Great White Gamble
On this day 108 years ago, a prime minister took a stand and invited some warships to visit Australia. Did he realise at the time what a monumental impact he would have on Australia’s place in the world?
On a Knife-Edge: Six other times Australia’s elections were down to the wire
With the election over, people are now analysing the very close result. The government’s very small majority is not unusual in Australian history, and plenty of elections have come down to the wire and shown a very close result. Our researcher Campbell has examined six of them.
Artists and activists: The Ongoing Adventures of X and Ray
To celebrate NAIDOC week, Libby has written a post about Indigenous artist Lin Onus and his series of works, The Ongoing Adventures of X and Ray.
On Paper: some election ephemera
As the election campaign wraps up, our researcher Campbell has unearthed some ephemeral items from our collection; things designed to be thrown away that have been preserved to tell us stories about past elections in Australia.
On this day: a Catholic forgives
Arthur Calwell was shot fifty years ago today. He survived, but the story of his brush with death doesn’t end outside Mosman Town Hall; it is a story of a Catholic faith that never wavered even when looking death in the face.
National Reconciliation Week in PLAY UP
Last week we welcomed early learners and their parents to PLAY UP for a special National Reconciliation Week event introducing museum items and activities to this small but mighty audience.
