Joint Winners

Cooktown Museum, National Trust of Australia Queensland

Reimagining James Cook Museum in partnership with Relative Creative

Formerly named James Cook Museum, Cooktown Museum has been reimagined to proudly tell the fascinating stories of the region and peoples who have lived there. Cooktown Museum is a heritage-listed former convent and school built in 1888–1889, owned by the National Trust of Australia, Queensland.

The Museum tells the story of the first recorded act of reconciliation between the Guugu Yimidhirr peoples, the Traditional Owners of the land, and Lt. James Cook. This largely untold story involves events during the 48 days when Lt. James Cook and his crew of HMB Endeavour repaired their ship after running aground on the Great Barrier Reef. Told from both perspectives, the story relates the interactions between Cook and the Bama (Guugu Yimidhirr people) over the capturing of turtles by the crew. Its outcome is integral to the story of Reconciliation in Australia.

In 2018, National Trust of Australia, Queensland engaged strategic design studio Relative Creative to design and lead community engagement as part of the broader project to redevelop James Cook Museum for the 21st Century.  To date the project has included the development of a visitor experience framework to guide the reimagining of the museum experience, including interpretation; rebranding the Museum; and the interpretation, design, manufacture and install of two museum rooms, The Maritime Room and The Bama Room. The Bama Room in particular captures significant concepts explored through a Guugu Yimidhirr lens, drawing on historic events and hopes for the future.

Noosa Regional Gallery

Floating Land: at the edge of ideas

Conceived in 2001 as an outdoor sculptural program held every two years, Floating Land invites visitors to experience thoughtful, challenging and environmentally aware works that engage sensitively with Noosa’s spectacular natural environments.

The 2021 Floating Land: at the edge of ideas marked the 11th iteration of this internationally acclaimed biennial art and environment event, delivering 28 projects featuring in excess of 70 artists, complemented by a program of performances and artist talks that were seen by an estimated audience of more than 57,000 people over the event’s 16 days. Importantly, each creative project left no physical trace on the environment at the conclusion of the event.

A high standard of artistic outcomes and cultural experiences lie at the heart of what Floating Land sets out to achieve. In 2021, it was delivered despite the challenges of COVID-19, with closed borders and local lockdowns impacting the development and delivery of the event; limiting the ability of the event to work with artists from further afield; and impacting engagement with interstate and international tourists.

Noosa Regional Gallery was awarded the Joint Winner in this category for the quality and professionalism of this impressive event and for achieving key outcomes in areas including:

• Strengthening Floating Land, and the arts more broadly, as an alternative tourism offering for the region;
• Engagement with a new generation of artists and audiences. Strategic effort was directed towards engaging with younger artists and audiences; and 
• Digital Engagement. Partially in response to COVID lockdowns and actual and perceived limitations on in-person engagement, the 2021 Floating Land saw a significant increase in digital engagement. More than 232,000 people were reached through social media across the 16 days of Floating Land – an average of almost 15,000 per day.

Finalists

Queensland Museum Network

Island Futures: What lies ahead for Zenadth Kes

As part of Queensland’s past, present and future vision, the Queensland Museum Network seeks to share and celebrate the story of the people, places, history and culture of our state’s First Nations Peoples. 

Coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the Coming of the Light – the introduction of Christianity throughout Torres Strait – Island Futures: What lies ahead for Zenadth Kes was an empowering exhibition focused on bringing to the forefront Torres Strait Islanders as narrators of their own stories, history and culture. More than an exhibition focused solely on antiquated objects, Island Futures highlighted contemporary voices and conversations about Torres Strait Islanders’ contribution to Queensland’s cultural landscape, as well as their place in contemporary Australia.  

The outcomes of this project were numerous, but the single most important outcome was the increased agency for Torres Strait Islanders to be able to tell their own stories in their own ways. It enabled the Queensland Museum Network to reinforce its role in acting as a platform for First Nations’ community voices to be heard, and for expression through curation, film and visual arts.  

The exhibition showcased the richness, vibrancy and diversity within the more than 200 islands of the Torres Strait. It demonstrated new narratives around Indigenous Futurism and encouraged discussion around contemporary issues including land and sea management by discussing climate change, rising sea levels, sea pollution (ghost nets) and material culture spread in museums around the world.

Other significant outcomes of this project included:

• Employment of Torres Strait Islander Lead Curator, highly regarded journalist and cultural advocate, Rhianna Patrick.
• A new commission from the world-renowned Erub Arts and new acquisitions of artworks by well-known artists Christopher Bassi and Dylan Mooney.  
• Engagement of Torres Strait Islander filmmakers Eric Murray Lui and Margaret Harvey.
• Engagement of Torres Strait Islander Instagram content creators.
• Students at St Margaret’s School in the Torres Strait were also invited to reflect on and share their hopes for the next generation, which resulted in a reimagining of the future that was displayed on a wall within the exhibition.

State Library of Queensland

The Great and Grand Rumpus

The origins of The Great and Grand Rumpus exhibition lie in the limitless imaginations of children. The fifteen-month-long community engagement project invited children from around Brisbane to expand their imaginations and, in doing so, dream up a collection of the most fantastic, astonishing and magical things one could expect to see. State Library of Queensland (SLQ) staff worked with young people to create a larger-than-life immersive exhibition that brought a sense of intergenerational play and whimsy to SLQ Gallery.

Over the course of the project 1,562 participants were intimately engaged in the Imagine, Design and Build phases of the project. The participant body was made up of 414 primary students, 414 secondary students, 531 tertiary students and 203 members of the public.

During project development, participants involved in the Design and Build stages of the project were brought into The Edge and guided by SLQ staff through a design thinking and fabrication process where they learned to build large-scale cardboard creatures and integrate immersive technology and lighting in order to bring to life the imagined creatures of The Great and Grand Rumpus.

The judges commended State Library of Queensland for its leadership and vision, being a place where the community can gather to engage in project-directed education, and for offering the community access to tools, expertise, and one another in an immersive, hands-on, intergenerational and intersectional learning context.