Antarctic Heritage Project – Call to Action
The “material culture” of our Australian Antarctic heritage takes on many forms.
Some of it can be seen on display at various collecting institutions, some of it forms part of research collections held by the same institutions and can be accessed by request.
Beyond the walls of formal collections there are many and varied groups of material held by individuals or families of expeditioners. Over the years the Club has presented a range of events, commemorations and projects, many of which have drawn on the private holdings of members. For example, the ANARE Jubilee commemorations in 1997, publication of the Club history in 2001 and more recently the highly successful commemorative events linked to establishment of ANARE stations at Heard and Macquarie Islands as well as Mawson.
These more recent commemorations have resulted in the accumulation of a range of heritage material relating to member’s participation in ANARE expeditions.
The Club is not a collecting institution, nor is it resourced to manage and interpret material culture relating to ANARE expeditions or the activities of its members.
As a result, there has been a growing need to determine the scope and heritage value of this material as well as establish a heritage management strategy to ensure effective and sustainable management of holdings of aspects of Australian Antarctic Heritage.
Since there is currently no Australian Antarctic Museum as such discussions have taken place with the manuscript collections manager at the State Library of Victoria who has been donated some material to date and is interested in developing an ANARE collection. In my opinion a fitting place for such a collection since Melbourne was the birthplace of ANARE.
At the last national Council meeting a submission was received for a project to ascertain relevant ANARE memorabilia available for donation to be collated, categorised evaluated and ultimately catalogued for possible donation to the Latrobe Library or another appropriate interested institution. This significant undertaking has been contracted to Richard Ferguson of Cultural Heritage Consulting. Richard has had an extensive career in Museums and Heritage collections and I am confident he will bring some resolution to the growing problem of what to do with a growing amount of material on offer due to the aging population of our membership. It is critical that valuable heritage material is not lost and found an appropriate permanent home.
The membership response form below is where members and/or their families are encouraged to complete the online form and submit it. I would welcome comments or questions regarding memorabilia.
Ian Toohill RFD
Historian
ANARE Club Inc.
0414 359 365
Alternatively, the form can be downloaded here and sent via email to historian@anareclub.org.au or sent by regular post to:
Ian Toohill
Antarctic Heritage Project,
PO Box 4240,
Briar Hill, Vic. 3088
