The 1933 Report on the Museums & Art Galleries of Australia: past insights, future assessments
In 1933 the Carnegie Corporation commissioned A Report on the Museums & Art Galleries of Australia. It offers a comprehensive post-Federation snapshot of the sector documenting funding models, collection development, resourcing, staffing and audience engagement. Ninety years on, many of the challenges it identified remain pertinent. Hindsight has revealed, however, some glaring omissions: including the absence of diversity and First Nations perspectives. As such it is a timely moment to consider how the sector has developed, what work still needs to be done, and the issues that the Carnegie Report failed to foresee.
This series of four talks will explore the original context and themes of the Carnegie Report, to learn from the past and assess the challenges of the next 90 years of museum practice in Australia.
Presentation One:
The 1933 Carnegie Report: background and overview
Dr Anna Lawrenson & Dr Chiara O’Reilly (The University of Sydney)
Wednesday 15 May, 1-2pm
Join us for the introductory talk of the series in which a historical overview of the Carnegie Report is discussed. In 1933, the Carnegie Report identified the “lack of funds, lack of curatorship, and consequent lack of public interest” as key challenges that the Australian museum sector needed to urgently address. This talk will inaugurate the series in its aims to identify developments in Australian museums over the intervening 90 years and highlight the emerging challenges and opportunities that were unforeseen in 1933.
Presentation Two:
Audience engagement through contemporary art practices
Please note: this presentation has been postponed.
In this talk, MCA Public Programs Manager Susan Sheddan will discuss some of the drivers in the history of museum education programming that have contributed to shaping those terms of relationship and shares examples of programs she worked on that attempted to enable new provisional agencies and alliances, many of which were developed through strategies of contemporary art practices.
About the speakers
Dr Anna Lawrenson has been a Lecturer in Museum Studies and in the Discipline of Art History at the University of Sydney since 2010. Anna's career has spanned critical museology and applied practice having worked in academia and the arts sector over a number of years. She is particularly interested in how the funding, history and administration of public museums and galleries influences their public offer in terms of brand, exhibitions and programs.
Dr Chiara O'Reilly is the Director of the Postgraduate Museum and Heritage Studies Program at the University of Sydney, with research interests in the history and development of museum exhibitions, and the historical context of blockbuster exhibitions.
Together they authored The Rise of the Must-See Exhibition: Blockbusters in Australian Museums and Galleries in 2019.
Susan Sheddan has been Public Programs Manager at MCA Australia since 2022. She has worked in gallery and museum public engagement programming for over 20 years at a range of organisations including Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Turner Contemporary, Courtauld Art Gallery and Design Museum.
Presentation Two
August 2024
Presentation Three
September 2024
Presentation Four
November 2024
Header image: Nicholson Museum, 1934