ozhistorybytes - Issue Ten: Museums as contested history sites
What does the National Museum of Australia's Story tell us about museums as places where
history is interpreted and debated?
By David Arnold
In 2001 the National Museum of Australia (NMA) opened on the shores of Lake Burley-Griffin in Canberra.
It was a momentous occasion. For the first time in its history, Australia had a ‘national’ museum, an
institution charged with telling the ‘national story’. From the moment the NMA opened, there was
controversy. While many praised the NMA’s bold architecture and imaginative exhibitions, others criticised
the NMA for telling a partial, unrepresentative story of the nation. In this article, David Arnold describes the
debates about the NMA and locates them within the broader framework of the ‘history wars’. His insider’s
view provides a valuable insight into the brief but turbulent history of the NMA, and offers a glimpse of
future directions.
Introduction
When Prime Minister John Howard delivered his National Press Club Australia Day address on 25th
January 2006 he talked about a need for ‘the root and branch renewal of the teaching of Australian history in
our schools’. The Prime Minister began by expressing a concern about the limited exposure students have to
learning about Australian history in primary and secondary schools, noting that too often history had ‘fallen
victim in an ever more crowded curriculum to subjects deemed more ‘relevant’ to today. He also had
concerns about how history was taught:
‘Too often, it is taught without any sense of structured narrative, replaced by a fragmented
stew of ‘themes’ and ‘issues’. And too often, history, along with other subjects in the
humanities, has succumbed to a postmodern culture of relativism where any objective record
of achievement is questioned and repudiated.’[1]
In part, he went on, what is needed for young Australians to become informed and active citizens is for them
to be taught the ‘central currents of our nation’s development’, including Indigenous history, the origins of
Western civilisation, the diversity of Australia’s migrant history, parliamentary democracy and the ideas of
the Enlightenment.
The debate over school history has some parallels with the controversy that engulfed the National Museum
of Australia for at least the first three years after it opened its new premises on Acton Peninsula on 11 March
2001, a central event in Australia’s centenary of federation celebrations. As with the recent school history
debate the controversy has centred on what kind of Australian history is presented and how this history is
interpreted. And as with the school history debate we are left to ponder some important questions: What
kind of Australian history should the Museum tell and why? How should it go about telling this national
story? And who should decide what stories it tells?
In this article I want to look briefly at some of the founding principles upon which the National Museum of
Australia was built and how commentators and others reacted to those principles, as embodied in the
Museum’s permanent galleries. This period culminated in a Commonwealth Government initiated review of
the Museum’s permanent exhibitions which was completed in July 2003. Guided by the Review the
Museum has recently embarked upon a major re-development program of two of its five permanent
exhibitions which are due for completion in 2008 and 2009 respectively. Are we witnessing a different kind
of museum emerging and if so, what is it becoming? What kind of national story will the National Museum
of Australia tell and how will it differ from what was presented in March 2001?
As you explore the story of the National Museum of Australia since 2001, as presented in this article, try to
answer the questions I have posed at various points along the way. These questions are designed to help you
consider how and why museums can become places where history is contested.
Guiding principles in 2001
Five exhibitions made up the National Museum’s permanent exhibitions in 2001 (and they still do). They
embrace three themes that were enshrined in the original law that established the National Museum of
Australia in 1980. These themes are:
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories,
• Australian society and its history since 1788, and
• the interaction of people with the Australian environment.
During the Museum’s development process, in the mid to late 1990s and prior to opening, the three themes
were synthesised into the intellectual framework ‘Land - Nation - People’. This framework was to guide the
development of gallery content. The plan was to draw on stories of the whole of Australia which explored
key issues, events and people that shaped Australians and the landscape, and influenced the nation. The
place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures was to be given particular prominence
with 40 per cent of the total exhibition space dedicated specifically to the Gallery of First Australians, while
in addition integrating Indigenous issues and stories throughout the remaining four galleries.
In addition, the National Museum developed the vision statement ‘exploring the past, illuminating the
present and imagining the future’. This signalled a belief that the Museum was to be about tomorrow as well
as yesterday. It was to link the future with the past, helping visitors to understand Australian history and
nationhood better so that they might gain insights into the future. The development of this vision became the
rationale for another important founding principle, namely that the Museum would be a place of dialogue
and useful debate about questions of diversity and national identity. It would be a melting pot for the
discussion of contemporary issues.
In attempting to define itself and its role in this way the National Museum of Australia became part of a
worldwide trend at the turn of the 21st century in which national museums took it upon themselves to ask
questions such as: ‘Who are we as a nation?’, ‘How did we get to be like this?’ and ‘Where might we be
going?’ In this sense national museums in Australia, New Zealand and Canada (to name just a few) saw
themselves as involved in a conscious nation-building exercise.
In her address to the National Press Club in March 2002, marking the first anniversary of the Museum’s
opening, then Director Dawn Casey linked the National Museum’s role and purpose with a number of what
she described as ‘fierce debates’. She enunciated them as a series of questions:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Who are we exactly, and how did we get to be this way?
What sort of people should we allow to join us in this nation continent, and why?
How many of us should there be?
What is the proper place of Indigenous Australians, and do we owe them special consideration?
Does what happened to them in the past matter today?
Is the way we have developed the land a matter for pride in achievement, or is it a slowly emerging
environmental catastrophe?
She concluded this list by stating, ‘they’re enormous questions, they’re complex and confronting. They’re
also about the kind of place we want Australia to be in the future, and they’re the reason the National
Museum of Australia will always be ‘controversial’ [2].
Shortly after the Museum opened in 2001 Casey made another speech. She made the following connection
between the Museum’s place as a sounding board for the nation on big, controversial issues and the content
of the five permanent exhibitions.
‘In re-telling the stories of Australia for a new audience we have therefore sought for ways to
ask significant questions about history and identity by setting up a conversation with our
audience through exhibitions, staff interaction, publications or special events. We want to
ensure that our visitors are not just reassured by the familiar, but also challenged by the new.
We want to show them the Australian identity they are familiar with and then stretch the
edges a little bit. In a sense we are saying to them ‘Australia has been this, which you know but also this, which you didn’t know. What then should we make of Australia in the
future?’[3]
The Museum’s exhibitions were also to be guided by the principle of ‘many voices’. Here are some excerpts
from documentation developed by staff and the Museum’s Council at a Council Planning Day in August
1997.
‘Australia’s diversity undercuts attempts at creating a seamless characterisation of national
identity. Yet this diversity also provides a rich opportunity for the Museum to explore the
variety of forms of expression of identity over time and in different locations. There will be
diversity in the points of view expressed by different groups.’[4]
What were the consequences of the principle of ‘many voices’ for the development of gallery content?
Casey shed some light on this in a speech she delivered in April 2002 where she asked the question: who
usually gets excluded from the telling of national stories, and who is included? ‘It is, of course, the winners
and the rulers who often dominate the story. The prosperous, white, male squatters, doctors, lawyers,
politicians, sometimes scientists or sportsmen. Men who achieve prominence because of their wealth,
leadership or special talent.’[5]
She then contrasted this list with those who she claimed miss out.
‘All the rest - the Indigenous people whose dispossession was the foundation of colonial
prosperity. Women, invisible except as support acts, behind- the- scenes domestic managers,
occasionally making the news as victims, or maybe providing one or two success stories
remarkable for their novelty value. Any people who grow up not speaking English, or whose
personalities, health, opinions or habits make them unacceptable to the mainstream for
whatever reason, are likely to miss out. These people are not likely to have their story told
except as a case study, and certainly their own opinions do not carry any weight. If they don’t
matter socially, they tend not to matter historically, so they disappear from the record. But and this is a big ‘but’ - we must remember that they are just as much part of Australian
history as Arthur Phillip, or William Wentworth, or Don Bradman, or Mark Oliphant, or John
Howard, or me, or you. Is this considered a fairly radical or debatable approach to history?
Well, yes, it is, but only to a few. ‘[6]
Dawn Casey’s comments raise a number of important questions: are the Museum’s five permanent
exhibitions more representative of those Australians whose stories are not usually told in history or do they
still reflect a greater emphasis on familiar events and ‘winners’? Or do the galleries manage to do both?
It is not possible here to describe the Museum’s five permanent exhibitions to see whether the principles
enunciated by the Museum, and in particular by Dawn Casey herself, have been faithfully carried out, or
whether they are indeed the best principles that can be used to create a national museum of social history.
There is no doubt, however, that the Museum received some very strong reactions - both favourable and
otherwise - when it opened to the public in March 2001. These reactions are themselves an indication of the
problematic nature of creating and displaying a national story.
Discuss and decide
• Read the section ‘Guiding principles in 2001’. If this was the only evidence you had, what would you
expect to find in the National Museum of Australia’s five permanent exhibitions? (i.e. possible themes,
periods of history, people, events, objects etc)
• Visit the NMA’s website - www.nma.gov.au - and select ‘Exhibitions’. Does the summary of each of the
permanent exhibitions match up with your answers in question 1?
• Do the exhibition website summaries reflect the guiding principles discussed above?
Initial reactions to the National Museum
The Museum opened its doors on 11 March 2001 and soon found itself in the middle of a fierce debate.
Although the Museum was well received by many historians, social commentators, journalists and the
majority of the visiting public, a vociferous group of opponents made their opinions widely known. Here is
a taste of the headlines and commentary of that time:
‘Museum offers tangled vision of Australia’[7]
‘New Museum, same old trivia’[8]
‘A nation trivialised - White history a ‘bad joke’’[9]
‘National pride and prejudices’[10]
‘the underlying message of the National Museum of Australia is one of sneering ridicule at white
history’[11]
In particular the Museum’s perceived bias in favour of telling Indigenous stories and using Indigenous oral
histories as authoritative sources of evidence plunged it into what is known as the ‘history wars’. Critics
included the commentator and historian Keith Windschuttle. In particular he objected to the presentation of
a frontier conflict story in the Gallery of First Australians. That gallery exhibition dealt with the alleged
massacre of Aboriginal people at Bells Falls Gorge near Bathurst in NSW in the 1820s. Windschuttle
claimed that the massacre did not take place.
‘[The Bells Falls Gorge massacre] is a complete fabrication. The first reports of the event’s
existence did not appear in print until 1962, that is 140 years later, when an article in the
Bathurst Times by a local amateur historian reported it as one of the oral legends of the
district. it is appalling that the [national] museum would still go ahead and produce such an
elaborate display about such a spurious story.’[12]
Even as far away as Germany, commentators recognised the significance of the debate taking place in
Australia and the centrality of the National Museum in that debate.
‘The new museum has a key role to play in Australia. For on the fifth continent a kind of
permanent history war is raging, a struggle between different community groups over the
question of who has made which contribution to the development of the land, and how the
rights of the original inhabitants are to be defined. People, Land, Nation - in Australia those
are key words, and the subject of vigorous debate in the year of Australia’s Centenary of
Federation.’[13]
The Museum responded to attacks on its authority by going on the attack itself, accusing those it termed
‘outraged traditionalists’ as wanting a ‘master narrative’ - a strong, authoritative voice with a simple
chronology of civilisation and progress’. Instead the Museum claimed it was committed to telling a complex
national story which ‘emerges not from a neat timeline, nor from a list of simple facts, but from the interplay
of many stories and points of view’. And the Museum responded to the specific criticisms made by Keith
Windschuttle about the display dealing with the alleged massacre of Wiradjuri people at Bells Falls Gorge.
The Museum’s Director said:
‘In fact we chose the Bells Falls Gorge story deliberately, because it is disputed territory.
Frontier conflict in Australia is not over, not safely past and gone. It lives on in the memories
of the people and the concerns of the present day, and is present whenever historians and
commentators gather to discuss what is known, and what the evidence means. It certainly
lived on at the Museum’s Frontier Conflict forum last December, where we set about
mediating the encounter between conflicting opinions. The frontier has not closed.’[14]
Discuss and decide
• Research both the negative and positive reactions to the Museum’s exhibitions when it opened in March
2001. What reasons did the commentators give for being either negative or positive about the Museum?
• Explore further the issue of the ‘history wars’ in Australia by conducting your own research. Explain why
it was highly likely that the National Museum of Australia would become involved in these ‘wars’.
• To what extent are you convinced by Dawn Casey’s justification (above) in relation to the Bells Falls
Gorge story? Explain your answer. You can visit this module virtually by visiting the NMA’s website http://www.nma.gov.au/schools/school_resources/resource_websites_and_interactives/assessing_a_muse
um_display/.
Explore this display. Decide whether you can come to a conclusion about the display’s veracity. Explain
whether you think you need additional information about the purported event and about the actual display.
The Review and its recommendations
It was in the context of the ‘history wars’ and the continuing debate over what constituted a national
museum and its legitimate role that the National Museum of Australia’s Council initiated a review of the
Museum’s exhibitions and public programs in January 2003[15]. It is not the purpose of this article to
examine the reasons for the Review or the merits or otherwise of its findings. Instead I want to concentrate
on the Review’s major criticisms and suggestions in relation to the Museum’s exhibitions. In particular I
want to explore two questions: What were the principles upon which the findings were based? Are those
principles similar to or different from the Museum’s founding principles in 2001?
The Review applauded the Museum for the way in which it presented the ‘mosaic of everyday life and its
more ordinary stories’, and also congratulated the Museum on the success of telling the history of
Indigenous peoples in the Gallery of First Australians, (although it was less enthusiastic about the treatment
of the ‘Contested Frontiers’ module which includes Bells Falls Gorge[16]). It also believed that the history
of the continent, and human interaction with the unique Australian environment had been ‘partly satisfied’
by laying what it saw as ‘a broad and coherent groundwork for future development’. Finally the Review
applauded the Museum’s preparedness to ‘cover darker historical episodes’, including contentious ones,
doing so with ‘balance, and by effectively combining exhibitions, conferences and publications’.[17]
On the other hand, the Review criticised what it saw as the Museum’s inability to adequately tell its stories,
being short, it believed, of ‘compelling narratives, engagingly dramatic realisations of important events and
themes in the Australian story’[18]. This, it argued, was in part due to a lack of focal objects signposting
‘fundamental moments’ in Australian history, and was most evident in both the Nation and Horizons
galleries which are devoted to the post-European arrival parts of the Australian story. In particular Horizons
is criticised for having an absence of ‘exemplary individual, group and institutional achievements’, while the
Nation gallery, which is largely devoted to the period from Federation to the present, suffers partly ‘from
presenting symbols on their own, without much interpretation, or narrative to provide context’. In this
gallery, the reviewers argue, ‘both choice of theme, and execution are problematic’[19].
At the end of its report the Review made the following recommendations:
• Present narratives throughout the exhibitions in a vital and engaging way - with cogency and meaningful
context
• Include the primary themes of Australian history, some of which are absent or given insufficient priority,
especially in the Horizons and Nation galleries
• Celebrate the achievements in Australian history of both Indigenous and non- Indigenous civilisations
• Give greater prominence to the nexus between Land (or Country) and People - working it up into a
leading motif connecting the permanent galleries.[20]
Comparing the recommendations outlined by the Review with the principles espoused by Dawn Casey and
others in the years preceding it, it is possible to see several similarities in emphasis. These include the
importance of the presentation of Indigenous histories and cultures and the acknowledgement that the
Museum should not shy away from addressing controversial issues, including contemporary issues. But
there also appear to be some possible differences between the Review’s recommendations and the principles
the Museum had been pursuing since it opened. One difference is in the importance placed on ‘narrative’ in
the exhibitions. Another possible difference is about what constitutes the primary themes of Australian
history.
In responding to the Review, the Museum will have to wrestle with the challenge of these possible
differences. For example, what will it mean to ‘ensure that the Museum celebrates Indigenous and nonIndigenous achievements in Australian history’? Will it mean a continuation of the principle of ‘many
voices’?
Discuss and decide
• Look closely at the exhibition principles enunciated in the Review’s recommendations and in the preReview period. What similarities and differences can you see in the two approaches? Are the differences
substantial ones, or more a matter of emphasis?
• The NMA is beginning to plan and devise two new permanent exhibitions as replacements for the current
Nation and Horizons galleries. Based on the Review’s recommendations, speculate on what content,
themes, events, people, objects etc might be included in the two new galleries.
Conclusion: gallery redevelopment and the future of the National Museum
In its Collections and Gallery Development Plan 2004-08, the National Museum of Australia defined a fouryear timetable to address the Review’s findings. The plan proposed that the Horizons gallery should be
redeveloped as Australian Journeys to represent voyages of discovery, exploration and settlement of the
Australian continent. This theme includes the settling of Australia by migration from Britain, Ireland,
continental Europe and Asia, and the journeys of Australians to other parts of the world.
The plan further proposed redeveloping the Nation gallery as Creating a Country to provide a general
history of Australia's economic, social and political conditions. Key moments in Australian history and
experience are to be explored through specific places and their pasts. Creating a Country is intended to have
an Australia-wide breadth in understanding the distinctive place-specific aspects of the nation’s history.
Work has just started on the development of the two new permanent galleries. But aside from the broad
content overview described above it is still unclear what Australian Journeys and Creating a Country will
cover and how this will be achieved. Both new exhibitions will be underpinned by a set of key criteria or
principles, which will be in part a reflection of the Review’s recommendations. What is still unclear,
however, is what kind of national story the Museum will tell in its remodelled galleries and how this will
differ from what was presented in March 2001.
In the first three years of its existence after opening in March 2001, the National Museum of Australia was
caught up in fierce debates about what constitutes Australian history and how it should be told. Since then it
has been reviewed at the request of the Museum’s Council, and with the approval of the federal government.
It is now set on a course of exhibition redevelopment, at least in relation to two of its major galleries. In
some respects there is nothing unusual in regularly modifying and changing permanent exhibitions; in fact
as a rough rule of thumb, the normal life expectancy of a permanent gallery is in the order of seven to ten
years. By the time the redevelopment process for the two galleries discussed in this article has been
completed (May 2008 and May 2009 respectively), a little over the seven year period will have gone by.
What is more unusual, however, especially in comparison with many other Australian cultural institutions, is
the level of public and professional interest in the continuing role of the National Museum in telling the
Australian story. Since the Review a quieter period has ensued as the Museum begins the process of gallery
redevelopment but that is likely to change when the new exhibitions near completion and are seen and
judged for the first time.
Just as John Howard called for a ‘root and branch renewal of the teaching of Australian history’ so others
called for, and now hope for, a root and branch renewal of the National Museum of Australia’s permanent
exhibitions. There is no doubt that the galleries that emerge in 2008 and 2009 will be different from those
that exist now. But how different they will be and what they will reveal about the changing nature and
purpose of the National Museum of Australia almost a decade after it opened is still uncertain. But it will be
eagerly anticipated by many.
Follow the exhibition redevelopment process: a note to teachers
Hopefully this article has whetted your appetite about the National Museum of Australia story and its
unfinished business of gallery redevelopment. The National Museum’s Education Section would be
interested in working with you and your students to help them investigate the Museum’s exhibition
redevelopment process. Get in touch with me if you would like to find out more about the gallery
redevelopment program and to explore ways we can work with you and your students to use the National
Museum as a case study in the construction of history.
You can contact me at d.arnold@nma.gov.au.
About the author
David Arnold is the manager of education at the National Museum of Australia. He joined the Museum in
August 2000 and has helped to establish the first education programs and outreach activities. The views
expressed in the article are those of the author and do not represent the National Museum of Australia.
Curriculum connections
David Arnold’s article reminds us that museums cannot be treated as collections of ‘all that is important’
about the past. They cannot be treated as a way of telling a straightforward, uncontroversial story - in the
case of the NMA, a story of Australia’s past. Rather, museums like the NMA remind us that historical
knowledge is interpretive and that, as a consequence, histories are debated and contested.
The ideas of interpretive knowledge, historical debates and contestation are key elements of the
Commonwealth History Project’s Historical literacies. The following sections describe ways in which David
Arnold’s article links with the CHP’s Historical literacies.
Contention and contestability
Perhaps most obvious is the link to Contention and contestability. The debates about the NMA’s
representation of Australia’s history have been both ‘public’ and ‘professional’. Academic historians,
journalists, other commentators and everyday citizens have all expressed deeply-held views about the
NMA’s exhibitions. As David explains, the debates have become part of the ‘history wars’ - heated
arguments about the way in which Australia’s past should be described and celebrated. In the history wars,
‘contention’ and ‘contestability’ are central. Various historians contend that Australian history should be
told in a particular way, and the various ways of telling history are contested. These debates are sometimes
characterised as being between those who promote a ‘celebratory’ history that focuses on the political,
economic and cultural achievements since 1788 and those who promote a ‘critical’ history that highlights
dispossession of indigenous people, damage to environments and disadvantage experienced by women, nonAnglo settlers and the poorer classes. As David’s article points out, the NMA has sometimes been seen as
favouring the latter (critical) approach. However, the debates about the NMA exhibitions are not simply
about ìcelebratory’ versus ‘critical’ approaches. They are also about the nature of evidence and what the
Review called the importance of signposting ‘fundamental moments’ in Australian history.
Narratives of the past
The history wars debates are connected with another of the CHP Historical literacies - Narratives of the past
- particularly the idea that ‘there are often multiple narratives surrounding an event’. In the case of the NMA
exhibitions, the principle of ‘many voices’ can be seen as a reflection of the principle of ‘multiple
narratives’.
Representational expression
This Historical literacy focuses on the different media and genres used to represent the past. The NMA is a
special example of this, as its galleries try to tell stories of the past through exhibitions in which artefacts
and texts are combined in creative ways. There is special value in such an approach. But, as the example of
the Bells Falls exhibition shows, there are also dangers. First there is the danger that the exhibition may not
be an accurate or credible representation of the event. Second there is the danger that, because an exhibition
can be interpreted in different ways, it may be seen by some as flawed.
Research skills
History depends on the research skills of historians. The available evidence about an event is often massive,
and historians have to be wise and skilful in locating, interpreting, evaluating and applying evidence to
construct their narratives. At the NMA, only a limited number of items can be selected for display in the
gallery exhibitions. And so the risk arises that critics will question and challenge the selection of artefacts
and texts, and possibly allege that a distorted view of the past as been presented in the galleries. For a
museum, the challenge of selecting items for exhibition is a daunting one.
Making connections
Here the aim of the NMA is explicit. The vision statement includes the expression ‘exploring the past,
illuminating the present and imagining the future’. Put simply, the NMA claims that an understanding of the
past can help people understand the present and, perhaps more importantly, make decisions about the sort of
futures they prefer. This can be as true of the individual person as it is of the nation.
To read more about the principles and practices of History teaching and learning, and in particular the set of
Historical Literacies, go to Making History: A Guide for the Teaching and Learning of History in Australian
Schools http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=220&op=page
[1] Prime Minister John Howard, address to the National Press Club, Great Hall, Parliament House, 25
January 2006
[2] Dawn Casey, ‘Museums as Agents for Social and Political Change’, address to the National Press Club,
Wednesday 13 March 2002
[3] Dawn Casey, address to the Fourth National Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference, April
2002’Indigenous identities - Australian and international perspectives’, keynote speech delivered at the
Museum’s Australia Conference, 25 April 2001
[4] Quoted from Dawn Casey’s address to the Fourth National Narrative Therapy and Community Work
Conference, April 2002
[5] Dawn Casey, address to the Fourth National Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference, April
2002
[6] Dawn Casey, address to the Fourth National Narrative Therapy and Community Work Conference, April
2002
[7] The Age, 10 March 2001
[8] Sunday Telegraph, 11 March 2001
[9] Daily Telegraph, 12 March 2001
[10] The Bulletin, 13 March 2001
[11] Daily Telegraph, 12 March 2001
[12] Keith Windschuttle, ‘How not to run a museum: People’s history at the postmodern museum’,
Quadrant, September 2001
[13] Werner Bloch, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 April 2001
[14] Dawn Casey, The National Museum of Australia - life on the frontier, keynote speech delivered at the
conference, Cultural Frontiers in Question: Nation, Religion, Refugees, 12 July 2002
[15] Review of the National Museum of Australia ? Its Exhibitions and Public Programs: A Report to the
Council of the National Museum of Australia, July 2003
[16] ‘In ‘Contested Frontiers’ neither the objects, text, nor graphics provided the level of authenticity
demanded by this weighty and complex subject’, Review, July 2003, p. 35.
[17] Review, July 2003, p. 68.
[18] Review, July 2003, p. 68.
[19] Review, July 2003, p. 68.
[20] Review, July 2003, p. 69.
http://www.hyperhistory.org/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=766&op=page