THE AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OF ARCHIVISTS PRESENTS A SYMPOSIUM EXPLORING COMMUNITY MEMORY, MEANING AND PLURALISATION Thursday 20 October 2011 9.00 to 4.30pm Crystal Palace, Sydney’s Luna Park Milsons Point, Sydney Proudly sponsored by AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OF ARCHIVISTS INC SYMPOSIUM PROGRAM THE AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY OF ARCHIVISTS PRESENTS ORDER OF PROCEEDINGS 8.00 – 8.50am Registration – venue foyer; tea/coffee 11.30am ‘Archiving the Sydney Opera House: a 2.50pm ‘Untold stories – Canberra’s Centenary drama in more than three acts’ opportunity’ 9.00am Welcome to Country Paul Bentley Dr David Headon 9.05am Symposium welcome, and welcome to SEssioN 2: IcoNic PEoplE 3.30pm Afternoon tea Keynote speaker Pat Jackson (ASA President) 12.00pm ‘Engaging with a national icon: The 3.55pm ‘WikiLeaks and the meaning of archives’ Matthew Flinders experience’ Cassie Findlay and Antony Loewenstein 9.15am Keynote address Paul Brunton Tim Bowden AM 4.25pm Introduction to Professor Nakata 12.30pm ‘Pitching the past – selling history to the Pat Jackson 9.45am Keynote speaker thank-you and welcome to media’ 4.30pm The Loris Williams Memorial Lecture Session 1 speakers Brad Argent Dr Louise Trott (ASA Councillor) Presented by the Australian Society of 1.00pm Questions and responses from the floor Archivists’ Indigenous Issues Special 9.50am SEssioN 1: IcoNic SpacES Interest Group 1.10pm Lunch ‘Are icons made or are they simply Professor Martin Nakata 1.50pm ‘From the Paper panopticon to Facebook promotional artefacts’ 5.00pm Symposium closing address - 21st Century uses of the Records of the Professor Peter Spearritt Pat Jackson Tasmanian Convict Department’ ‘Closure? Or opening? Collections and Ross Latham 5.30pm Drinks overlooking Sydney Harbour archives as forums for dialogue’ Joanna Besley SEssioN 3: IcoNic EVENts 6.30pm Close 10.50am Questions and responses from the floor 2.20pm ‘Archiving the immediate: how and why archives should approach social media’ 11.00am Morning tea Dr Axel Bruns 1 ARCHIVING THE ICONIC: EXPLORING Tim Bowden is a broadcaster, radio and television Life; Antarctica and Back in Sixty Days. Aunty’s Jubilee COMMUNITY MEMORY, MEANING AND documentary maker, oral historian and author. He was – Celebrating 50 Years of ABC-TV was published in PLURALISATION born in Hobart, Tasmania in 1937 and currently lives in October 2006. His most recent book, published in May regional NSW. He is married, with two children. 2008, is Down Under in the Top End – Penelope Heads From 1986 to June 1994, Bowden hosted the ABC-TV North. In one day away at an historic site we seek to explore listener and viewer reaction program Backchat. For the last 20 years Tim Bowden has been actively the challenge of engaging with archives of iconic Bowden’s background in journalism includes current broadcasting, writing and researching Australian significance. Whether personally or politically affairs, news, and feature and documentary work. He activities in Antarctica. He has produced six radio sensitive, famed, notorious or controversial, physical has worked as a foreign correspondent in Asia and documentaries Australians in Antarctica in 1987, and in or virtual, iconic archives create their own set of North America, and in 1969 was the first executive 1993 was commissioned by the Antarctic Division to challenges for the archivist. producer of the ABC radio current affairs program write the official history of ANARE (Australian National PM, before becoming a producer with the ground- Antarctic Research Expeditions) The Silence Calling – KEYNOTE SPEAKER breaking television current affairs program This Day Australians in Antarctica 1947-97. Tonight in the early 1970s. Bowden’s six half-hour documentaries Breaking the Ice (on current ANARE operations, following visits to TIM BOWDEN AM In 1985 Bowden founded the ABC’s Social History Unit. Among his major productions are the award-winning all the Australian stations at Macquarie Island, Casey, 24-part series Taim Bilong Masta – The Australian Davis and Mawson from October to December 1994) Involvement with Papua New Guinea, and Prisoners of were broadcast on ABC-TV in April and May 1996, and War – Australians Under Nippon. have been released on ABC DVD. His published books are: Changi Photographer – Tim Bowden received an Order of Australia for services George Aspinall’s Record of Captivity; One Crowded Hour to public broadcasting in June 1994. In May 1997, he – Neil Davis, Combat Cameraman; The Backchat Book; was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters The Way My Father Tells It – The Story of an Australian from the University of Tasmania. 2 SESSION 1 Iconic Spaces Are icons made or are they simply promotional Closure? Or opening? Collections and archives as exhibitions and collections that represent the artefacts? forums for dialogue experiences of people who have experienced multiple Professor Peter Spearritt Joanna Besley traumas and distress, such as being institutionalised or caught up in a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Peter Spearritt regards ‘icon’ as the most over-used This presentation takes as a starting point the idea word in the promotional lexicon. He admits some that collections and collecting institutions can be Through a discussion of examples both in Australia responsibility for this overuse, having used the term in generative spaces. Exhibitions in particular can be an and overseas, Jo Besley will explore how collecting his publication The Sydney Harbour Bridge: a Life, first active gathering, a process that creates collections institutions can take on the role of contemplating published in 1982. rather than just draws from them. If curators and interpreting difficult, contentious, even incomprehensible, events and experiences. Drawing In the 75th anniversary edition of the book, published and others work closely and collaboratively with on personal curatorial experience with projects in by UNSW Press in 2007, he felt unable to abandon the individuals and communities who have a personal Queensland, alongside international examples from term because of upstart bids for Brisbane City Hall, stake in the history being presented through a recent Churchill Fellowship, Jo will look at the the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings, the Wrest Point collections, then memories, stories, fragments and potential for collecting institutions to be spaces that Casino and other implausible claimants to the term. even absences – not just objects and documents – become essential elements of both collections and encourage ‘opening up’ as opposed to the popularly- Peter Spearritt canvases the role of archival records exhibitions. held notion of ‘closure’. in supporting both established and fading iconic structures, with examples from various Australian The potential returns of this approach are significant, capital cities or states. but it is not easy. This is particularly true with 3 SESSION 1 Archiving the Sydney Opera House: a drama in more than three acts Paul Bentley From 1973-1997, the Sydney Opera House employed the Dennis Wolanski Library and Archives of the Performing Arts, as well as records management, marketing and other business units, to capture its history. From 1987, at a time when responsibilities for recordkeeping were shifting from the gravediggers to the midwives, plans were developed to amplify the House’s archival capital through exhibitions, multimedia projects and a high-tech performing arts museum. The museum aimed to cover the cost of running archival and library programs and to generate additional income of $1 million for the Opera House. The 1995 NSW state election and managerial turnover led to the closure of the Dennis Wolanski Library and Archives in 1997 and the dispersal of its collection to other institutions and organisations throughout Australia. What happened during the first two decades? What happened to the material afterwards? And are there any lessons from the experience? 4 SESSION 2 Iconic People Engaging with a national icon: The Matthew Flinders – with transcriptions – the entire Flinders archive held more than 2 billion profiles from over 100 countries experience by the Library. Most importantly, it engaged people in 20 million member trees. Ancestry.com.au has also Paul Brunton around Australia, led to offers of material, a revived determined that 90 per cent of Australians consider interest in Flinders himself and in his archive. Publicity knowing their family history to be important – a for both Flinders and the work of the Library across powerful statistic for archives to note and leverage. The Flinders exhibition, Matthew Flinders: The Ultimate Australia was unprecedented. Brad Argent, Ancestry.com.au’s Content Director for Voyage – mounted by the State Library of NSW in Paul Brunton will follow the journey of this major Australia and New Zealand will outline the process 2001 – was the most successful exhibition the Library exhibition – from archive to audience. Ancestry uses locally (and internationally) to engage has ever staged. It was on show at the Library from with the media; from writing effective press releases to October 2001 and then travelled nationally in two establishing ongoing relationships with broadcasters versions, metropolitan and regional. Twenty-two and journalists. The objective of this presentation is to locations were visited, and the curator visited each Pitching the past – selling history to the media equip attendees with the basic knowledge needed to and presented talks and activities. The metropolitan Brad Argent get their share of media