Happy Holidays from Her Place Women’s Museum Australia

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As 2017 comes to a close, we would like to take stock and share some of the highlights and achievements of Her Place Women’s Museum Australia throughout this busy year.

Since 2016, donations, partnerships and seed funding from the Victorian Government’s Gender Equality Strategy. This support enabled Her Place to:

  • Deliver 6 highly successful touring exhibitions across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria, including the Melbourne Town Hall; VU at MetroWest, Footscray; COPACC, Colac; The Warehouse, Clunes; Melbourne Museum and, to end the year, at Queen’s Hall, Parliament House, Melbourne, in November 2017
  • Celebrate and honour the achievements of 25 women from across Victoria
  • Profile 14 women from the Victorian Honour Roll of Women and 7 regional women
  • Attract around 9,000 attendees from schools and the general public to our openings, events and exhibitions
  • Produce 38 curriculum-linked educational resources for primary and secondary students
  • Facilitate 5 professional development programs for teachers
  • Stage 13 public events, including forums, public programs and walking tours
  • Enlist over 60 volunteers, who have assisted behind the scenes and at exhibitions
  • Attract 81 media activities across Victoria and nationally – radio interviews, television, print and digital media
  • Engage SGS Economics and Planning to develop a strong business case to help secure future funding from government, public, private, corporate and philanthropic sectors

One of the highlights was being invited to collaborate with Museums Victoria’s ‘Invisible Farmer Project’. Presented at the Melbourne Museum over October–November, the Women of the Land exhibition celebrated rural women who work, protect and heal our land.

As Mary Stuart, Chair of Her Place stated at the opening:

In Australia, there are more statues to animals than to women. Women of the land shouldn’t have to sit on a tucker box to get noticed.

The exhibition was accompanied by two very successful Her Place events: a workshop for teachers on gender equality programs for students, and a public forum that saw dynamic contributions from a range of speakers discussing: Everyday Documents and Australian Women’s History: a discussion about the challenges of collecting and why archives matter.

Further to this exhibition, Lynley Marshall, Museums Victoria’s CEO, extended her generosity and offered Her Place Women’s Museum Australia a much-needed new office. Since mid-November we have had a stable base from which to work towards our goal of establishing a museum dedicated to recording the history, achievements and experiences of women in this country.

Her Place already has a number of exciting projects on the horizon for 2018. We continue to find opportunities to tour our exhibitions to regional venues across Victoria. And we are also exploring the potential for a new exhibition that will celebrate the achievements of Australian women across the sciences.

Look out also for an event hosted by Her Place at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) as part of their major new exhibition, Unfinished Business: Perspectives on Art and Feminism. Her Place’s event will take place on Sunday 4 March, in the lead-up to International Women’s Day.

Her Place Women’s Museum Australia is supported by a tireless group of volunteers and committed supporters. To these people, we would like to say thank you! Your energy to make this new initiative become a reality is extraordinary.

We also extend a special thanks to the women who have been profiled in our exhibitions and who have so generously given us their time, shared their stories through video interviews, and loaned precious personal artefacts for display.

Many thanks also to the family members and associates who have enabled us to celebrate the significant contributions of women from previous generations. We thank you all!

And we wish you, your friends and families a happy and peaceful festive season.