AMplify - Conversations at the Australian Museum: Recent Episodes
Australian Museum
Join Director and CEO Kim McKay AO in conversation with scientists from the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI) and experts in First Nations and Pacific cultures. When not 'in conversation', AMplify will bring the best from the AM’s live talks, giving you a front row seat at enlightening presentations from inspirational people.
A moderated by the AM’s World Cultures Collection Manager, Max Moon. The Australian Museum was proud to host Sanjay Garg’s first public peaking event in Australia.
Explore the relationship between the heavens and Earth with world-renowned astronomer, Professor Fred Watson AM, in this fascinating discussion hosted by Professor Anthony Burke.
Join leading experts as they explore Peruvian archaeology, spirituality, and the achievements of the ancient Andean civilizations. This fascinating discussion, featuring Dr. Chris Carter, Professor Julian Droogan, and journalist Caroline Baum, traverses thousands of years of history and culture.
Dive into the connections between Peru’s biodiversity and ancient culture in this discussion featuring the Australian Museum’s Chief Scientist, Prof. Kris Helgen, and Andean archaeology expert, Dr. Jacob Bongers. Hosted by ABC Radio National’s Natasha Mitchell, this session explores how Peru’s unique environment shaped its civilizations.
Trailblazers in the fields of energy, engineering and the environment explore some of the innovations and inventions shaping the sustainability landscape. Hosted by Richie Merzian, CEO of the Clean Energy Investor Group, this enlightening panel discussion features celebrated inventor Professor Veena Sahajwalla AO, solar pioneer Dr Muriel Watt AM and CEO of the Mulloon Institute Carolyn Hall. Join these inspiring leaders as they showcase the exciting and practical climate technologies and initiatives leading us towards a more sustainable future.
Professor of Architecture, and host of ABC TV's Grand Designs Australia, Anthony Burke, hosts this electrifying panel discussion dispelling the myth that a sustainable home is a “thing of the future”. Featuring Kate Minter (Managing Director, Rewiring Australia), Marc England (CEO, Ausgrid) and Tim Forcey (author and home efficiency expert), this session unveils some of the innovations and techniques available to homeowners and tenants to help build a better future now.
Unceremoniously ejected from the Australian Museum 150 years ago, former AM Curator, Gerard Krefft, was Australia's first zoologist and helped foster a national understanding and appreciation for natural sciences. Join us for a free and fascinating discussion on 'Gerard Krefft: A Saga of Science and Scandal', held on Saturday 21 September 2024. Featuring AM Director and CEO Kim McKay AO; former Director Dr Des Griffin AM; and our Head of World Cultures, Archives & Library, Dr Vanessa Finney.
In this Eureka Talk, explore the wonderful diversity of Antarctica and learn how experts are fighting to save this region from the devastating effects of climate change. Hosted by Australian Museum Eureka Prize winner Dr Jackson Ryan, this panel discussion explores how the Antarctic landscape has changed over the past century, and the critical role of scientists, researchers and science communicators in striving to preserve our frozen continent.
n the 1980s, a new wave of Egyptomania emerged in Australia with the first touring exhibition from Cairo, but Australia’s fascination with Egypt’s ancient past had begun in the 19th century. Our attraction to the ancient world endured throughout the political swings and design trends of the early 20th century, and grew as Egypt hosted ANZACs for deployment in both World Wars.Come with us to ‘Ramses Street’ as we explore the legacy of Ancient Egypt in Australia and discuss the current shift to untangle and address colonial narratives in museums. Hosted by Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah.
Twice a year, sunlight sweeps into the chambers of The Great Temple at Abu Simbel, illuminating the face of Ramses II and marking the beginning of the flood and growing seasons. Temples were monuments to the pharaohs and the gods, reminding all of Egypt’s wealth and prosperity. For modern visitors, these temples stand as examples of the ingenuity and scope of human endeavour.In the fourth instalment of our Saturday Lecture Series, we explore some of these monuments’ key architectural features; how kings, such as Ramses II used them to define and portray power and - in the case of Abu Simbel – as a means to harness the sun. Following the lecture, join in the conversation with a Q&A hosted by Professor of Architecture, Restoration Australia’s Anthony Burke.
Five years into his reign, Ramses undertook his most ambitious military action, attempting to wrest control of Kadesh from the Hittites. Join Associate Professor Ockinga as he unravels the complexities of one of the most famous battles in the ancient world and asks whether history is necessarily written by the victors.
In the premiere event of our Saturday Lecture Series, Macquarie University Professor Malcolm Choat uncovers the history of KV7 - The tomb of Ramses the Great. Tomb KV7 had a life that extended beyond a pharaonic burial chamber. Ancient tourists inscribed their names and impressions on its walls, Christian monks made their homes there and transformed the necropolis into a holy city. A thousand years later, a new wave of tourists from Europe began recording their impressions of Egypt. Join Professor Malcolm Choat as he takes us on a journey through time to explore how the “afterlife” of the tomb of Ramses II - and the Theban Necropolis - teaches us as much about Ancient Egypt as the New Kingdom does.In this captivating lecture, hosted by the Australian Museum’s Chief Experience Officer Russell Briggs, learn what happened in the years between the interment of the great Pharaoh in the 18th Dynasty, and the contemporary excavation of the tomb in the 19th Century.
Come on a journey to the afterlife with archaeologist Dr Anna-Latifa Mourad-Cizek as we explore everything from beliefs and practices to tombs and funerary equipment. ‘I exist, I am alive, I am strong, I have awoken'.Along with mummification, ceremonies and the creation of tombs, ancient Egyptians contrived hundreds of spells to safeguard their eternal existence.Using key pieces from the exhibition Ramses & the Gold of the Pharaohs, Macquarie University’s Dr Mourad-Cizek will explain how pharaohs, princesses, artists and others prepared to join the realm of the dead, to become eternally divine.
In the first instalment of the Australian Museum’s exclusive 'Egypt - In Conversation' series, curator and Egyptologist Dr Melanie Pitkin sits down with journalist and passionate Egyptophile Caroline Baum for 'An Introduction to Egypt'.As the Senior Curator of the Nicholson collection of antiquities at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, Melanie shares insight into ancient Egyptians and their world view. Learn about key personalities, events and periods of pharaonic history to the interrelationship between religion and society.
The future is female! We turn the spotlight on some of the incredible 2023 Eureka Prize winners and finalists who represent the future of science in Australia.Listen to the last of our Eureka Talks Series, as Associate Professor Alice Motion chats with some of the incredible 2023 Eureka Prizes winners and finalists. We will sit down with Dr Stephanie Partridge, Associate Professor Noushin Nasiri and Scientia Associate Professor Kate Quinlan and delve into the unique challenges and achievements of these three remarkable scientists, whose research and inventions are literally helping to save lives.The Eureka Talks Series shines a light on research and innovations changing the fields of Climate, Health and Science Communication. Hear from Australian Museum Eureka Prize winners, finalists and other science leaders as they share their experiences, challenges and discoveries in their particular fields of research. The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes were established in 1990 to celebrate the work of Australian scientists, and how their contributions are producing world-leading results that can influence the lives of many across the globe.
Professor Kris Helgen, Chief Scientist and Director of the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI) in conversation with Ron Lovatt, the Australian Museum's longest serving 'DigiVol' photographer. In this recording Ron talks about his early years and what prompted him to return to nature photography later in life. He discussed his techniques for producing the ultra-high resolution photography that he employed in the Australian Museum Citizen Science program DigiVol.Recorded 6 September 2023 at the Australian Museum.
In this Eureka Talk, explore the science behind the deadliest event of the 21st century. Australian Museum Eureka Prize winning journalist, Olivia Willis, sits down with world-leading evolutionary biologist and virologist, Professor Eddie Holmes, and our Chief Scientist and Director of the Australian Museum Research Institute, Professor Kris Helgen, to discuss what is being done to prevent future zoonotic outbreaks.Explore how viruses move between hosts, and the debates over their origins. Learn about the triggers for virus mutations and the cutting-edge research and discoveries that are paving the way towards preventing the next pandemic. Discover the fascinating links between habitat destruction, illegal wildlife trade and the next global health emergency.Recorded live at the Australian Museum on 8 July 2023.
Eureka Talks Series: Waste Not, Want NotRecorded live at the Australian Museum 10 June 2023Join two of the 2022 Australian Museum Eureka Prize winners, as Dr Jackson Ryan sits down with Professor Veena Sahajwalla to explore the science of decarbonising the world with a recycling revolution.In the first Eureka Talk, join us for an eye-opening talk on revolutionising waste. Dr Jackson Ryan, winner of the 2022 Eureka Prize for Science Journalism, sits down with the 2022 New South Wales Australian of the Year and two-time Eureka Prize winner, Professor Veena Sahajwalla, to discuss the cutting-edge research helping build a better world.Our speakers will explore the science of decarbonising the world and the importance of collaboration in scientific innovation. Find out how the grounds from your cappuccino could help to eliminate the need for coal and coke. Dive into the four R's - reduce, reuse, recycle, and REFORM - and how they can be applied to create a sustainable future.The Eureka Talks Series shines a light on research and innovations changing the fields of Climate, Health and Science Communication. Hear from Australian Museum Eureka Prize winners, finalists and other science leaders as they share their experiences, challenges and discoveries in their particular fields of research. The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes were established in 1990 to celebrate the work of Australian scientists, and how their contributions are producing world-leading results that can influence the lives of many across the globe.
Recorded live at the Australian Museum 7 June 2023Nature speaks, but are we listening? Hear from photographic artist and activist, Leila Jeffreys, renowned naturalist, Tim Low, and author, David Gandelman, as they explore how improving your relationship with nature can, in turn, improve your relationship with yourself.Drawing from personal experiences, the panel will invite you into a more mindful space and ask you to reconsider how we interact with the world around us. From creatures big and small, there is plenty we can learn. Hear how Leila’s work as a photographic and installation artist has deepened her understanding of the importance of interconnection and belonging for all living things. Discover invaluable insights into the natural world and its relationship to us as Tim shares his learnings from decades of research and writing (including best-seller books Where Song Began, Feral Future and The New Nature). Add in David’s practical approach to mindfulness and this is sure to be a perspective-shifting evening.
Bee taxonomist Dr Michael Batley sits down with native bee ecologist and science communicator Amelie Vanderstock to chat about the importance, beauty and diversity of Australia's wonderful native bees, and discover ways to bring them to your garden.There over 1600 named native bees in Australia, and possibly another 1000 that are yet to be discovered. They live among us, in near silence, undertaking the crucial work of pollinating wildflowers, native plants and crops. One of the greatest concerns of taxonomists like Michael Batley is that species will go extinct invisibly – that a bee will disappear before being known to science. Michael is working hard to document the bees and chart new discoveries so that we may find ways to halt their decline.Recorded live at the Australian Museum on 4 February 2023.
Proud Cudgenburra/Bundjalung man, landscaper and Gardening Australia presenter, Clarence Slockee, joins us for the second installment of the series. Learn five practical ways to bring beautiful local blooms, birds and butterflies into your garden as Clarence busts the myth around the difficulty of growing native plants. Five Things is a series of talks by Australian ecology experts that offers real-world steps you can take to boost biodiversity and to make your community a haven for native plants and wildlife.Recorded live at the Australian Museum on 3 December 2022
On Saturday 5 November 2022, journalist and author, Ali Gripper, sat down with Dr Jodi Rowley for an intimate Q&A on Jodi’s life's work and to learn five things we can do to make our gardens frog-friendly.Frogs play a crucial role in the balance of our ecosystems. Australia has over 240 known species of frog, almost all of which are found nowhere else in the world. With climate change robbing them of habitat, clean water and food sources, frogs are fighting for their lives.Since 2017, Curator of the Australian Museum Herpetology Collection, Dr Jodi Rowley, has been championing the protection of frogs through citizen science app FrogID. Through people power, over 700,000 frogs have been documented, giving Jodi and her team of scientists an unprecedented picture of the lives and deaths of Aussie frogs.
Recorded at the Australian Museum Thursday 2 June 2022.
The ways in which we consume media have shifted, offering us extraordinary opportunities to inform people, bring them together and evoke action. But in this digital era, too much of one thing – or the wrong thing – can make people just scroll on. How do we balance images of loss and devastation with the prospect of a better future?
Social researcher Dr Rebecca Huntley has focused on climate change since seeing images of the school climate strikes in 2018. The visceral anxiety and impassioned efforts of the students inspired her to do what she could to make a difference for her own children’s generation.
In this year’s Talbot Oration, the respected Australian author, commentator, climate change strategist and mother will investigate the powerful ways that images can convey the messages of climate change and inspire climate action. Using data and evidence based on years of social trend research, Rebecca will offer reasons why the right imagery can break through the online chatter and spark action.
Following her address, Dr Huntley was joined by Tishiko King, a proud Kulkalaig woman and campaigner for climate and social justice, and Dr Saul Griffith, engineer and author of The Big Switch, in conversation with Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt AO.
Artist Daniel Boyd and Academic Dr Stephen Gilchrist discuss the legacy of Emily Kame Kngwarreye and the importance of place and ceremony in art today.
When Emily Kame Kngwarreye died in 1996, she was recognised as one of the world’s great painters. Her work was inherently tied to deep, layered understanding and interpretation of her Country’s stories, and was the culmination of a lifetime of making art as ceremony. If an inherent relationship to place is the basis of First Nations visual tradition, what does it mean for contemporary First Nations art practitioners? How do urban-based Indigenous artists – and those whose cultures have been lost to them – maintain links with their heritage and create ceremony through their work?
Recorded at the Australian Museum on 15 June 2021
Arts leaders Wesley Enoch and Rhoda Roberts AO reflect on the legacy of writer Oodgeroo Noonuccal and activism in the arts. The first published Aboriginal poet in Australia, the writings of Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker), captured both the strength of Aboriginal culture and the impacts of colonisation on her people. A charismatic, strong leader from Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), her distinctive voice pricked the national consciousness and brought another perspective to the literature of the time. Wesley Enoch, who grew up on Minjerribah, has strong memories of “Aunty Kath”, and is now returning to Country and carrying on her legacy. In this very personal session, arts leaders Wesley Enoch and Rhoda Roberts AO share their memories of Noonuccal and discuss how arts and activism are inseparable.
Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt AO and Dr Jason DeSantolo explore the legacy of David Unaipon and how traditional systems and knowledge are helping solve contemporary issues.
NITV’s Yokayi Footy presenter Bianca Hunt and Professor John Maynard, Chair of Aboriginal History at the University of Newcastle, talk opportunities, barriers and responsibilities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sportspeople past and present.
Sport has allowed First Nations people to compete as equals on the field. Success offers possibilities of financial reward and social acceptance far above that which might be otherwise available. Yet as time goes on, we find sport and racism cannot be separated.
Join Indigenous systems ecologist Chels Marshall and facilitator Dr Mariko Smith to discuss how deep cultural knowledge not only overturned the legal fiction of terra nullius but may help reverse the damaging effects of 200 years of Eurocentric land and sea management practice into the future.
Eddie Mabo’s native title claim changed the foundation of this nation’s land and sea law by proving that First Nations people had, through interconnecting social and ecological knowledge systems, lived sustainably and harmoniously on country for millennia.
Professor Tim Flannery outlines his manifesto for humanity’s survival of the “climate emergency” in the Australian Museum’s (AM) inaugural Talbot Oration. The event was held free to the public on Thursday 3 June 2021 at 6:30PM in Hintze Hall at the Australian Museum.
In his speech, Professor Flannery made the case for using Australia’s approach to COVID-19 as a model for responding to climate change, outlined in his new book, The Climate Cure: Solving the Climate Emergency in the Era of COVID-19. Professor Flannery spoke about the opportunity for Australia to lead in addressing the climate crisis and implement a prompt, effective, science-led government policy on management – and survival – of the climate threat.
Following the keynote address, Professor Flannery was joined by Professor Veena Sahajwalla and multi-award-winning journalist Rae Johnston for a panel discussion moderated by former AM president, businesswoman and sustainability adviser Sam Mostyn AO discussing solutions and actions the public can take to help minimise climate change impact.
Australian Museum Director and CEO Kim McKay in discussion with Professor Tim Flannery.
Glenn Murcutt AO (with Sandra Sully)
Architect Glenn Murcutt is globally acclaimed for his environmentally sensitive, sustainable and quintessentially Australian designs. The sole practitioner, teacher and critic, counts his childhood in Papua New Guinea and his father’s inspiring guidance, informed by the ideas of Henry David Thoreau, as profound influences. Murcutt has received every significant award including the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the Alvar Aalto Medal and the AIA Gold Medal.
Recorded live at the Hallstrom Theatre in the Australian Musuem on 25 June 2019.
Albert Namatjira by Franchesca Cubillo (with Tracey Holmes)
Born on the Hermannsburg Lutheran mission in the Northern Territory in 1902, the life of iconic master painter and Western Arrernte man Albert Namatjira was entangled in virulent racial politics. Franchescha Cubillo, Churchill Scholar and Senior Curator Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia, offers insights into the Hermannsburg Movement, the artist’s magnificent paintings and enduring legacy.
Recorded Live at the Hallstrom Theatre in the Australian Museum on 18 June 2019.
Mark Carey- The Culture and Politics of Ice
University of Oregon’s Mark Carey explores the fundamental role of glacial ice in global economics and politics and within our imaginative, historical and colonial narratives. Much more than just a barometer for climate change or pristine nature, glacial ice has been an elemental force in human history, fundamental to global politics and central to the quest to make oceans, mountains and the polar regions safe for global markets.
Recorded on the 22 October 2019 at the ANZAC War Memorial in Sydney.
HumanNature Series: Lessons on resilience from a bamboo bridge Katherine Gibson and Juan Francisco Salazar (Western Sydney University) explore life within the rhythms of nature in resilient community economies.
For more than half a century, a 1.5 km handmade bamboo bridge spanned the Mekong River in Cambodia. It was constructed annually as the waters of the river subsided, and dismantled as they rose again with the monsoon rains, until in 2017, it was replaced by a concrete structure permanently connecting the island community of Koh Paen to the bustling city of Kampong Cham.
What can a bamboo bridge teach us about ingenuity and resilience, respect for renewable materials and ethical living? Interspersed with clips from their film commemorating this beautiful, ephemeral bridge, Katherine Gibson and Juan Francisco Salazar illuminate local practices harnessed to diversify livelihoods and build economic resilience.
Recorded at the ANZAC War Memorial in Sydney on 20 August 2019.
Andrea Gaynor - Armoured histories: radical remembering for the Anthropocene
Hold the past to account with Andrea Gaynor, University of Western Australia as she proposes `radical remembering’ to actively confront the challenges of the Anthropocene. Climate breakdown, annihilation of entire species, dwindling topsoil and fresh water, food shocks and plastic oceans led 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg to admonish the assembly of wealthy and powerful at the 2019 World Economic Forum to ‘act as if our house is on fire. Because it is’.
Recorded 12 November 2019 at the ANZAC War Memorial.
Bruce Pascoe’s ground-breaking research completely reconsiders the notion of pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians as hunter-gatherers. Explore and challenge the colonial myths that have often underpinned efforts to justify dispossession in this fascinating discussion. Reading the diaries of early explorers, both with and against the grain, Pascoe retells Aboriginal history and argues that it is time to take a new look at Australia’s past.
Bruce Pascoe is Bunurong/Tasmanian Yuin man and an award winning author and story teller. His most recent book is Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? (Magabala Books, 2014), which won both the Book of Year and the Indigenous Writers Prize (joint winner) in the 2016 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. His other books include Night Animals, Fox, Ruby Eyed Coucal, Shark, Ocean, Earth, Bloke, Cape Otway, Convincing Ground, Little Red Yellow and Black Book, and Fog a Dox. Bruce is a board member of the Aboriginal Corporation for Languages and First Languages Australia and a past Secretary of the Bidwell-Maap Aboriginal Nation. He lives in Gipsy Point, Far East Gippsland with his wife, Lyn Harwood, and two children and three grandchildren.
Recorded in the Hallstrom Theatre at the Australian Museum on 18 Oct 2018.
Environmental martyrs put their bodies and lives on the line, risking imprisonment, violence or burial in a shallow grave in the dead of night. Some activists remain anonymous, while others gain posthumous fame and power, their deaths becoming a rallying call for others to join the cause. Rob Nixon, Professor in Humanities and Environment at Princeton University, and author of the award-winning Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, explores the surge in environmental martyrdom around the world over timber, water, land and mineral rights. Martyrdom is direct action in extremis, he says. But why are so many people sacrificing their lives? And what is the relationship between the fallen martyr and the felled tree?
Professor Fred Hollows AC by Gabi Hollows AO (with Sandra Sully)
New Zealand born, UK trained eye surgeon Fred Hollows’ drive to end the injustice of avoidable blindness emerged from a deep commitment to social equality. The economical approach to ophthalmology – focussing on training local surgeons and reducing the cost of lens - which he and his orthoptist wife Gabi developed, has restored sight to more than 2.5 million people. The Fred Hollows Foundation which the couple established in 1992 just six months before Fred died, continues to empower poor and neglected communities across the world.
Recorded in the Hallstrom Theatre at the Australian Museum on 11 June 2019.
Dr Macarena Gomez-Barris - The Occupied Forest Venture into the cacophonous space of the forest with Macarena Gómez-Barris of the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn USA, as she considers its contested conceptual, indigenous and potentially regenerative narratives. Recorded in the Hallstrom Theatre at the Australian Museum on 25 June 2019
Live at the AM: Lunchtime Conversation Series - Terry Percival AM, representing CSIRO WLAN by Australian Museum
Live at the AM: Lunchtime Lecture Series 2019: John Maynard On Charles Perkins by Australian Museum
Google Maps began in the spare room of software engineer Noel Gordon’s Sydney apartment in 2003. Today’s instant digital information, directions and street views of almost anywhere on earth has changed our lives, our understanding of the world and how we move and interact within it.
Noel Gordon is in conversation with Australian Museum Director and CEO Kim MCKay.
Recorded at the Australian Museum in the Hailstorm Theatre on the 25 September 2018.
Australian Museum Director and CEO Kim McKay AO has led the transformation of the nation’s first museum into one of the world's pre-eminent natural history and cultural institutions. Kim also co-founded the Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World campaigns, and was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the environment and the community. She offers reflections on the historic, scientific and cultural significance of the newly-restored Westpac Long Gallery, the nation’s first gallery, and its collection of treasures.
Kim McKay is in conversation with Tracey Holmes, recorded at the Hailstorm Theatre at the Australian Museum on 18 September 2018.
Dick Smith in conversation with Kim McKay as part of the Australian Museum Lunchtime Lecture series.
Sydney born Dick Smith is an adventurer, businessman, entrepreneur, philanthropist, political activist and 1986 Australian of the Year. The founder of Dick Smith Electronics became a household name, launching Australian Geographic magazine in 1984 to sponsor adventure and inspire a love of nature. His own groundbreaking aviation feats include a solo helicopter flight around the world and to the North Pole, as well as a non-stop balloon trip across Australia.
Recorded 11 September 2019 in the Hallstorm Theatre at the Australian Museum.
This talk took place on Tuesday 21 May 2019 in the Hallstrom Theatre as the first installment of the Australian Museum's Lunchtime Conversation Series.
Author Thomas Keneally in conversation with Australian Museum Director & CEO, Kim McKay
One of our most popular and prolific authors, Thomas Keneally has produced more than forty novels, screenplays, memoirs and non-fiction. His embrace of challenging themes and social justice is evident in Bring Larks and Heroes, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Schindler’s Ark, which won the Booker Prize, and was made into the Academy Award winning film Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg.
This talk was presented on 14 May 2019 as part of the Australian Museum's HumanNature series.
HumanNature Series: Environmental justice and the power of the Pacific word
Experience the award-winning "eco-poetry" of Craig Santos Perez from the University of Hawaiʻi, as he reflects on the vital role of Pacific literature in the environmental movements of Oceania.
The Pacific region is at the front line of Climate Change. Can literature play a significant role in raising awareness and inspiring activism? Join award-winning Craig Santos Perez as he reflects on the vital role of Pacific literature and poetry in environmental justice movements across the region.
ABOUT HUMANNATURE In this landmark series of talks, the Australian Museum is proud to host a stellar line up of leading Australian and international scholars. They will share with us their insights from history, literature, philosophy, anthropology and art to examine the significant interplay between the humanities and the environmental crisis we face today, including climate change, biodiversity loss and a wide range of other issues.
ABOUT CRAIG SANTOS PEREZ Craig Santos Perez is an associate professor at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa, where he teaches Pacific literature and eco-poetry. The author of four collections of poetry, and co-editor of four anthologies, he is the first Pacific Islander to receive the American Book Award, and first Micronesian to receive the highest literary award from the Hawaiʻi Literary Arts Council. Dr Santos Perez has lectured and performed at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, the UNESCO Ocean Literacy conference, the Indigenous Book Festival, the Festival of Pacific Arts and the International Conference on Environmental Futures.
This talk was presented as part of the Australian Museum's HumanNature series on 30 April 2019.
HumanNature Series: Is green the new white?
Lesley Green (University of Cape Town) considers how environmentalism squares with anti-racism and social justice in the sourcing of `green’ commodities from the sands of South Africa.
Green explores the impact of extracting titanium dioxide, used to produce lighter spectacles, more fuel-efficient airplane parts, whiter paper and food, on the coastal settlements of Xolobeni and Lutzville. Both villages are embroiled in a struggle with the same Australian mining company as they try to sustain a living from the land. Green unravels the categorical jiu jitsu of the South African Anthropocene - where the economy is limited to finance; the hope of political liberation becomes a belief in trickle-downs from market neoliberalism, and environmentalists, in opposing extractivism, become white capitalists opposing black economic empowerment. Is green, she asks, the new white?
ABOUT HUMANNATURE In this landmark series of talks, the Australian Museum is proud to host a stellar line up of leading Australian and international scholars. They will share with us their insights from history, literature, philosophy, anthropology and art to examine the significant interplay between the humanities and the environmental crisis we face today, including climate change, biodiversity loss and a wide range of other issues.
ABOUT LESLEY GREEN Lesley Green is Professor of Anthropology and founding Director of Environmental Humanities South at the University of Cape Town. A Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 2018, former Rockefeller Humanities Fellow at the Smithsonian and Mandela Fellow at Harvard, her research focuses on science and democracy in a time of climate change in South Africa.
Professor Green is the author of Rock | Water | Life: Ecology and Humanities for a Decolonising South Africa (2019), editor of Contested Ecologies: Dialogues in the South on Nature and Knowledge (2013) and co-author of Knowing the Day, Knowing the World: Engaging Amerindian Thought in Public Archaeology (2013).
This talk was presented as part of the Australian Museum's HumanNature series on 26 February 2019.
HumanNature: Connection and cooperation in a time of climate change
In his urgent call to action, Birch identifies the powerful roles that First Nations ecological knowledge, environmental activism, scholarship and creativity can play in addressing the impact of climate change, particularly on vulnerable and disempowered communities suffering human rights abuses as a direct result.
No less pressing, he argues, is the acceptance of personal responsibility towards forming respectful and humble relationships with country and the planet.
TONY BIRCH Poet, short story writer and novelist, Professor Tony Birch is the current Bruce McGuinness Professorial Research Fellow in the Moondani Balluk Academic Centre at Victoria University, and in 2017, became the first indigenous writer to win the Patrick White Award. Tony has published key academic articles and essays concerning Climate Justice, Protection of Country and Indigenous Rights, and is currently researching and writing a book titled `The dead are the imagination of the living’: climate justice and connectivity.
This talk took place at 1pm, Tuesday 2 September in the Hallstrom Theatre at the Australian Museum as part of the Australian Museum's Lunchtime Lecture Series.
Australian film legend George Miller traces his multi-award winning engagement with film to the ritual Saturday matinee in his hometown of Chinchilla, Queensland. After a stint at medical school he became a filmmaker, going on to create the Academy Award-winning Mad Max, Babe and Happy Feet series among many others. In this intimate talk, George discusses his early life and career, and reveals some amazing facts about his films, such as how his wife, editor Margaret Sixel, had to edit 480 hours of footage for Mad Max: Fury Road down to just two.
Layne Beachley is widely regarded as the most successful female surfer in history, and is the only surfer, male or female, to claim six consecutive world titles (1998-2003); she went on to win a 7th world title in 2006 before retiring in 2008. In this inspiring conversation with AM Director Kim McKay, Layne reveals the source of her drive to be the best of the best, involving the loss of her mother at age 6 and the revelation of her adoption. She also opens up about the equally strong power of love and her marriage to rock legend Kirk Pengilly.
“The fear of abandonment and the fear of rejection is essentially what drove me to become a six-time consecutive world champion. And the reason I differentiate from the seventh is because the seventh title was won in a state of love. So I proved to myself that you can do it in two different ways.
“We all experience trauma, we all perceive it in a different way and none of us can control what happens to us, but the one thing we can control is how we respond to it.”
This talk took place at 1pm, Tuesday 28 August in the Hallstrom Theatre at the Australian Museum.
From copy girl to editor at the age of 23, Ita Buttrose’s boundary-pushing career at The Telegraph, Cleo, The Australian Women’s Weekly and The Sunday Telegraph won her status as a feminist icon. The legendary media trailblazer, businesswoman, best-selling author and 2013 Australian of the Year continues her active leadership role as a committed community and welfare contributor.
This talk took place at 1pm, Tuesday 21 August in the Hallstrom Theatre at the Australian Museum.
This event took place in the Hallstrom Theatre, Australian Museum, Sydney, on 14 June 2018.
Join Alice Te Punga Somerville as she explores the histories and possibilities of Indigenous gardens in the Pacific region.
Colonial projects have long been bound up, in a variety of ways, with the movement, growth and exploitation of plants. But these projects have also traded rhetorically on particular understandings of people’s relationships with plants, like the vein of colonial storytelling in which Indigenous people frolic aimlessly in nature while Europeans busily tame the landscape. But, despite these stories, the purposeful movement of plants is also central to many Indigenous histories and practices.
Drawing on scholarship and activism connected to cultivation by Indigenous peoples, this talk examines texts by Indigenous writers alongside historical and contemporary media texts about gardens and gardening to explore the diverse ways in which relationships (human and non-human) are mediated and nurtured through acts of gardening.
Alice Te Punga Somerville (Te Atiawa, Taranaki) is an associate professor at the Faculty of Maori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato, where her research and teaching sits at the intersections of literary, cultural, Indigenous and Pacific studies. She has taught in Indigenous Studies and English in New Zealand, Hawai‘i, Canada and Australia. Her first book was Once Were Pacific: Maori connections to Oceania (2012). She is currently working on a multi-stranded research project titled ‘Writing the new world: Indigenous texts 1900-1975.’ She also writes the occasional poem.
What is the HumanNature Series? In this landmark series of talks, we are proud to host a stellar line up of leading Australian and international scholars.
They will share with us their insights from history, literature, philosophy, anthropology and art to examine the significant interplay between the humanities and the environmental crisis we face today, including climate change, biodiversity loss and a wide range of other issues.
This event took place in the Hallstrom Theatre, Australian Museum, Sydney, on 12 July 2018.
Join Catriona Sandilands (York University, Toronto) on this adventure into the complex and fascinating worlds of plants.
Sandilands is particularly interested in people’s relationships with botanical others, including shifting understandings of what plants are and what they can do. In this time of accelerating environmental and social change—which is also a time of widening inequalities—Sandilands draws the insights of feminist thought and practice into this conversation to ask: what might we learn, what new approaches and possibilities might become possible, through a feminist botany?
This lecture took place at the Australian Museum on 23 April 2018.
How do different human cultures give shape and meaning to the idea of climate? Join Mike Hulme, Professor of Human Geography at the University of Cambridge, as he explores some of the many fascinating ways climates are historicized, known, changed, lived with, blamed, feared, represented, predicted, governed and, at least putatively, re-designed.
Understanding these complex climate cultures is, Hulme contends, essential to any adequate understanding of the politics of climate change.
HumanNature: The Humanities in a Time of Environmental Crisis lecture series investigates the increasing impact of crises such as climate change, mass species extinction, Indigenous dispossession, racism and the excesses of capitalism, and determine how to respond to the greatest global emergencies of our time.
How does giving and receiving take form in, and give form to, our living world? While most discussions of gift-giving focus on exchanges between humans, Deborah Bird Rose is also captivated by the many forms of connectivity and flow that are integral to ecological processes.
Drawing on her research with Indigenous people, Rose asks: what might it mean to understand gift giving as central to, and moving across and between, many systems of life; and what might it require of us, in this time of extinctions in which countless living forms and their possibilities for giving and receiving with others, are slipping away? ___ Deborah Bird Rose came to Australia in 1980 to live with Aboriginal people in the hopes of learning about their relationships with country and other species. Instead of going home to the USA, she stayed to work with people on land claims and other decolonising projects. Her continuing commitment to social and ecological justice focuses on multispecies communities in this time of escalating violence and amidst the peril of extinction.
A prize-winning author, and co-founder of the international journal Environmental Humanities, Deborah is an Adjunct Professor in Environmental Humanities at UNSW. Her most recent books are Extinction Studies: Stories of Time, Death and Generations, co-edited with Thom van Dooren and Matthew Chrulew (2017), Manifesto for Living in the Anthropocene, co-edited with Katherine Gibson and Ruth Fincher (2015), and Wild Dog Dreaming (2011). ___ What is the HumanNature Series? In this landmark series of talks, we are proud to host a stellar line up of leading Australian and international scholars.
They will share with us their insights from history, literature, philosophy, anthropology and art to examine the significant interplay between the humanities and the environmental crisis we face today, including climate change, biodiversity loss and a wide range of other issues.
The icy expanses of Antarctica were an unforgiving frontier for early explorers. Among them was Sir Douglas Mawson, who faced frostbite, exposure and exhaustion in his journeys across the frozen continent. He passed some of his time writing love letters to his wife back home. But how did he stumble on a meteorite in all that ice and snow?
Behind every object is a story – join Charles Wooley and Kim McKay as they reveal some of the Treasures at the Australian Museum.
Early British settlers were so flummoxed by the platypus that they thought it an elaborate hoax, created by stitching a duck’s beak onto the body of a mole. But Australia’s greatest charlatan is an entirely different creature to behold.
Behind every object is a story – join Charles Wooley and Kim McKay as they reveal some of the Treasures at the Australian Museum.
One of the most significant objects in the Australian Museum’s collection is a humble, hand-crafted bird-shaped pestle. Its invention marked a crucial moment in human history, upon which entire civilisations grew. The influence of the simple stone object stretched all the way to the Pacific, where this story takes a sudden, violent twist.
Behind every object is a story – join Charles Wooley and Kim McKay as they reveal some of the Treasures at the Australian Museum.
The wilful and wanton destruction of the Tasmanian Tiger is a sad reminder of the importance of conserving our natural history. Charles Wooley reveals the tragic tale of the man who shot the world’s last Tasmanian Tiger in the wild. And the team tells the story of resurrecting the world’s rarest insect, now living on a lonely volcanic rock at sea.
Mel Ward started life on the stage as an acrobat and comedian. But something about the creatures he found on the beach as a child kept calling him back to the sea. But what drove him to collect 25,000 crabs from around the world? And what exactly is eccentric dancing?
Behind every object is a story – join Charles Wooley and Kim McKay as they reveal some of the Treasures at the Australian Museum.
Working in a museum in the 19th century was a hazardous occupation. In 1831, the Australian Museum’s inaugural custodian William Holmes accidentally shot himself with his own shotgun, while collecting a cockatoo. But the sudden demise of museum curator, Darwinian and “guardian angel” Gerard Krefft, was more curious still.
Behind every object is a story – join Charles Wooley and Kim McKay as they reveal some of the Treasures at the Australian Museum.
Sydney in the early 1800s was a fledgling colony, full of convicts, soldiers, settlers and social climbers – the kind of town where you might win and lose your fortune in a single day. With the release of Australia’s first bank note and the subsequent gold rush in NSW came the whiff of financial security. But how did a large gold nugget go from an abandoned mine shaft to a government office corridor game of cricket?
Behind every object is a story – join Charles Wooley and Kim McKay as they reveal some of the Treasures at the Australian Museum.
Step inside the treasure that is the Westpac Long Gallery, Australia’s oldest gallery in the nation’s first museum. When it opened to the public, in 1857, a quarter of Sydney’s population queued to witness its wonders of nature and culture. The gallery now houses the 200 Treasures of the Australian Museum. Behind every object is a story – join Charles Wooley and Kim McKay as they reveal some of them.
The AM held its annual AMRI Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony on Wednesday 9 August 2017, designed to recognise eminent researchers and science communicators who have made outstanding contribution to science and biodiversity conservation. This year, the 1971 Lord Howe Island Environmental Survey Group led by ex-AM Ecologist, Dr Harry F. Recher has been awarded the 2017 AMRI Lifetime Achievement Award.
Kids are full of difficult, challenging questions. Why are we destroying the reef? Why won't we accept refugees on our shores? Is it ever ok to tell a lie?
Each of our minor and momentous decisions shape the world we’re making for our children. In this episode of AM Live, Dr Simon Longstaff offers engaging approaches to teaching children how to think and behave ethically. Dr Simon Longstaff is the Executive Director of The Ethics Centre, co-founder of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, and author of The Spider's Song and Everyday Ethics.
Kim McKay talks to Laura McBride, Creative Producer, Programs, Exhibitions and Cultural Collections at the Australian Museum in the latest episode of AMplify for NAIDOC Week.
Kim McKay talks to Sharni Jones, Manager, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island Collection at the Australian Museum in this latest episode of AMplify.
In the latest episode of AMplify, Kim McKay talks to Gillian Scott, Manager, Exhibitions at the Australian Museum.
A live panel discussion with former Eureka Prize winners, hosted by Robyn Williams.
In this live recording hosted by The Science Show's Robyn Williams, Dr Michael Bowen, Dr Richard Major, Professor Angela Moles and Sonya Pemberton share their Eureka Prize-winning work and discuss the big issues facing Australian science.
This lively panel discussion covers a diverse range of topics including psycho-pharmacology, rapid evolution in introduced plant species, making compelling and challenging science documentaries, science in the era of Trump and the importance of building curiosity in the world from a young age.
Our panellists for the evening were: Dr. Michael Bowen, School of Psychology, University of Sydney; Dr. Richard Major, Senior Research Scientist, Australian Museum Research Institute; Professor Angela Moles, Big Ecology Lab, UNSW Australia; and journalist and producer Sonya Pemberton, Genepool Productions.
The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes reward excellence in the fields of research, innovation, leadership, science communication and school science. The 2017 Eureka Prize finalists will be announced at the end of July and winners at the end of August. To read more, visit www.australianmuseum.net.au/eurekaprizes.
0:00 – 13:50 Introduction from Kim McKay AO, Executive Director and CEO, Australian Museum 13:50 – 50:10 Panel discussion hosted by Robyn Williams 50:10 – 55:00 Close from Kim McKay AO, Executive Director and CEO, Australian Museum
'Dark Emu' author Bruce Pascoe detailed his research into early colonial diaries and records of Indigenous life in this episode of Live at the AM. His work indicates that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing – behaviours inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer assessment. In this lecture, he also addressed the underlying agendas that have shaped the narrative regarding Australia’s 60,000 years of history.
Pascoe was joined by special guest Dr Michael Westaway, archaeologist and biological anthropologist, who discussed his research and findings from work at both Aboriginal sites and with Australia's megafauna.
In this episode of AM Live, join our panel of experts featuring Sophie Li, Clinical Psychologist; Nicole Wright, Pharmacist and Specialist in Poisons Information; and Lachlan Manning, Naturalist and Live Exhibits Officer at the Australian Museum as they examined the dangers – real and imagined – which underpin our society’s persistent fear of spiders.
In the latest episode of AMplify, Kim McKay talks to Dr Jenny Newell, Manager, East Pacific Collection and Acting Director of Programs, Exhibitions & Cultural Collections at the Australian Museum.
In this AM Live episode, Dr Helen Maynard-Casely talks about exploring the solar system on the eve of the United Nations Day of Women and Girls In Science on 11 February.
“I know why I’m a scientist: when I was 8 the very first British person in space was a woman called Helen Sharman, and I wandered up to see my dad after hearing this momentous news and said “Dad - I’m going to space because that’s what Helens do.” I really can’t tell you how important that moment was for me - it drove me to be a scientist and to want to explore space.”
Kim McKay talks to Vanessa Finney, Manager of Archives and Rare Books about the Australian Museum's newest exhibition Transformations - Art of the Scott Sisters.
"It (the Scott sisters archive) consists of 100 amazing, incredible, beautiful, jewel-like paintings, but behind that sits a larger archive of manuscripts, notebooks, sketches and drawings, which make it an unusually comprehensive view into 19th century science done by women which is incredibly rare in the Australian context." - Vanessa Finney.
Listen to Executive Director and CEO Kim McKay in conversation with Sheldon Teare, Objects Conservator at the Australian Museum (AM).
Sheldon works in Materials Conservation across the AM's Collections, and specialises in Natural Sciences Collection materials. He was recently given the opportunity to study in Spain as part of the AM's Staff Awards, recognising his outstanding contribution to the AM
"Even something as large as a lion can be affected by something as small as a pest, a little beetle that could eat the skin or fur or feathers, things like that, so while we deal with things on a macro scale we also deal on a very micro scale. " Sheldon Teare
Australian Museum CEO and Director Kim McKay AO in conversation with explorer, scientist, communicator and 2007 Australian of the Year, Professor Tim Flannery.
Tim Flannery has made many remarkable discoveries in palaeontology, mammology and environmental science. In this podcast, he discusses with Kim what inspired him to become a scientist, his time spent working at the AM, as well as his most recent expeditions to the Solomon Islands.
"You can think of Collections in museums as great and complicated machines that have been built up over many, many decades, in some cases centuries, of fieldwork, research and publication. And the machines are directed towards understanding the nature of our world better." Prof Tim Flannery
Anthropologist Dr Robin Torrence in conversation with the Australian Museum's CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay.
Dr Torrence's archaeological research focuses on the roles of ancient material culture, especially stone tools, in peoples’ daily lives, social strategies, and long term adaptation. She has been especially interested in how the manufacture, design and exchange of tools can help people minimise risks.
"We’re trying to write the story of colonial history from the perspective of Indigenous people by looking at the objects they made and traded." Robin Torrence
Exhibition Producer Catherine Timbrell in conversation with the Australian Museum's CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay.
"I know from osmosis that simply by putting this exhibition together people often mistake me for a spider expert, but our Arachnologists here remind me that I’m not when they hear me drop a clanger every now and then." Catherine Timbrell
The inhabitants of Komunive village, Asaro River, in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, are famous for their fearsome clay headdresses and dramatic ritualised celebrations of custom in the form of dance performances.
For one week only, four Asaro Mud Men were in residence at the Australian Museum. The Asaro Mud Men have gained prominence as an ‘intercultural phenomenon’ and reflect how communities respond to aspects of modernisation and globalisation through their Holosa masks and performances
"The whole idea of bringing the community here is to have that close engagement with the Australian public. …it seems like there is a collective amnesia about who we are as a nation in the 21st century, who our neighbours are, and how close we are to Papua New Guinea." Yvonne Carillo, Senior Collections Officer, Pacific Collections at the Australian Museum.
This Live at the AM night talk asked the questions: How do museums make new acquisitions today? How important is the inclusion of indigenous makers' perspectives in the process of making objects, filming and bringing their own newly produced cultural objects to the Australian Museum?
This distinguished panel will tackle these key questions, in conversation with acclaimed Australian journalist Sean Dorney, who has had a long standing relationship with Papua New Guinea.
The panel featured members of the Komunive community (Asaro valley, Eastern Highlands, Goroka), documentary filmmaker Ms Klinit Barry and pacific specialist and Asaro Project Manager, Yvonne Carrillo-Huffman. This conversation provides a rare opportunity to explore the team’s field and travelling experiences of this major collaborative cultural project between the Australian Museum, the Komunive community, filmmakers from the University of Goroka, and the J.F.K McCarthy Museum (Goroka), commissioning a new collection of Holosa masks and filming the acquisition process.
Hear the inspiring stories behind nature photographer Luke Tsharke's most powerful images, including his submissions to the Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year 2016 exhibition.
Find out how Luke travelled the world capturing jaw-dropping landscapes, like Tasmania's ethereal Lake Oberon, and contributing shots to popular Instagram accounts like Tourism Tasmania and Tourism Northern Territory.
“When you go into a canyon it’s quite a foreboding place - you’re in a wetsuit, you’re going through very cold water, it can be quite claustrophobic and to get to the end and see a beam of light makes it all worth it but you have to have the courage.” LukeTschark
Australian Museum CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay in conversation with Steven Alderton, Director of Programs, Exhibitions & Cultural Collections at the Australian Museum.
Steven has a background in growing audiences and producing innovative exhibitions, public programs and events supported by extensive community engagement.
"The first thing it takes [to make an exhibition] is a great idea, and I always say a great idea is free...it always comes back to audience for me and a great idea." Steven Alderton
Listen to the live recording of the 2016 AMRI Address and Lecture delivered by Professor Mark O'Kane, NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer.
"People need STEM in daily life to manage the incredibly rapid growth of knowledge…the emphasis we really to put is on getting teachers really confident so they inspire students - when they’re not being inspired by the Museum of course!"
Professor O'Kane chose to speak on the evolution of scientific knowledge and the skill of posing 'the right question'.
"There are things that Australians are naturally good at in science, but don’t think about it.. I asked someone ‘is it raining?’ - what do they do? They do what lots of Australians do and pull out their phone, look at the Bureau of Meteorology website, but they don’t go look at the forecast, they look at the radar. Australians do that – whether predicting the surf or whatever – Australians are natural meteorologists, they are really good at!" Mary
Ellie Downing of the Australian Museum’s Science Engagement and Events team speaks to Lola about the upcoming Australian Museum Science Festival (AMSF), the role of museums in education and some of the current trends in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM). Recorded live on Thursday 29th July, 11am for Koori Radio -http://www.kooriradio.com/
Australian Museum CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay in conversation with celebrated Australian artist Janet Laurence, artist-in-resident at the Australian Museum.
"There has always been a museumification in my work, I'm always thinking of creating my own little museums... I've made many many models of little museums I'd love to make."
Janet has created the installation "Deep Breathing', made from glass and coral, to emulate a life-saving resuscitation unit and draw attention to the impacts of global warming on one of the world’s great natural wonders - the Great Barrier Reef.
"Often my work is celebrating the beauty and extraordinary aspects of nature, but I feel compelled to reveal - in a state of emergency - what's happening."
Janet’s work was inspired during a residency at the AM’s Lizard Island Research Station (LIRS) situated on the Reef. It is a powerful work that addresses the threat of climate change and human interference to our precious marine environment.
Gaby Kennard recorded live at the Australian Museum as part of the Trailblazers Talks series presented by Australian Geographic.
Inspired by her childhood hero Amelia Earhart, Gaby Kennard became the first Australian woman to fly solo around the world. In doing so, she proved that it’s possible for an ‘ordinary’ single mother of two to fulfil her dream.
"If I could make this dream a reality, which seemed very difficult considering I had no aeroplane, no money, a single mother with two children.. If I could actually make this happen, other people would say 'if she can do that, I can do what I want’, and that was a very strong thing in me, I felt very strongly about it" Gaby Kennard
On 3 August 1989, Kennard climbed into her single-engined Piper Saratoga, specially equipped with long-range fuel tanks, a life raft and emergency rations. A twin-engined plane would have been safer, but this model was all she could afford.
Over the next 99 days of her record flight, she faced equipment malfunctions, terrible loneliness and crippling bureaucracy. But inspired by Amelia Earhart and an extraordinary group of female pilots worldwide, she completed the 54,000-kilometre flight.
Australian Museum CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay in conversation with Phil Gordon, the AM's Aboriginal Heritage Project Officer.
Phil coordinates the AM's Repatriation policy to support return of aboriginal remains held in museum collections around the world, and is also investigating potential digital repatriation of secret men’s material.
“As part of Aboriginal culture there are materials and knowledge and ceremonies that are controlled by both men and women, that other people can’t participate in. “
“This is what we know as secret women’s business or secret men’s business”
“Exactly, and as part of that objects are produced, sometimes those objects were destroyed straight away, but other objects were not and they were continually used. As part of the colonisation process a lot of those objects were taken away or given for safe keeping to missionaries and those sorts of things. And these objects still have power, both of a cultural and political too… As a way of acknowledging that power and sensitivity we actually have separate storage areas for these sorts of objects, and we have been involved over the past 30 years in trying to return some of those objects to communities.”
Australian Museum CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay in conversation with Paul Flemons, Manager of Digital Collections and Citizen Science at the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI).
Paul has been instrumental in building the AM’s reputation as a world leader in biodiversity informatics and initiated the award winning DigiVol program.
"The collections that are many hundreds of years old we are now being able to make available not just to the local people who can get into the museum, but to people all around the world who do research on particular taxonomic groups, particular animal groups. Everyone has access to our collections once we make them digital."
An evening with celebrated explorer, scientist, communicator and former Australian of the Year.
Dr Tim Flannery is arguably Australia’s best known scientist and agitator for action on climate change.
From 1984 to 1999, Tim was the Principal Mammal Research Scientist here at the Australian Museum. His work helped extend the Australian mammal fossil record by 80 million years, and his expeditions to remote areas of Papua New Guinea resulted in the discovery of 16 species and many subspecies of mammal, particularly tree kangaroos.
“The largest rat that we caught, an animal nearly a meter long and 2kg in weight, turned out to be unknown to science.”
“A great moment for me was I realised placing trust in those people, and going out with them, was hugely important. I really owe my career to, as I call them, the Professors from Melanesia, those old men and women who knew so much… sadly that generation is passing.”
After a stint as visiting chair of Australian studies at Harvard University and director of the South Australian Museum, Flannery wrote a defining work on climate change in 2003, The Weather Makers, and argued for drastic measures to address the rise in greenhouse gases.He was declared Australian of the Year in 2007, appointed chairman of the Federal Government's Australian Climate Commission in 2011 and then leader of its replacement body, the Climate Council, in 2013.
In 2016, he and a team of AM scientists will embark on yet another expedition to the Solomon Islands.
Join Tim for a fascinating evening as he shares highlights of his career and his responses to the recent UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.
Trailblazers Talks, presented by Australian Geographic, brings together Australia’s greatest living explorers for a series of inspirational events. The 21-weeks series will be held on Thursday evenings at the Australian Museum from 25 February – 14 July 2016.
Australian Museum CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay in conversation with Ichthyology Collection Manager Mark McGrouther at the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI).
Mark started work at the Australian Museum in 1981 and over the next three decades he participated in over 30 expeditions within Australia and throughout the Pacific region.
"Sydney harbour is, well I like to describe it as a marine jewel. It really is extraordinary, there is nearly 600 species recored from the harbour. And when you compare that with the mediterranean, it has more species that the mediterranean more species that all north western Europe combined, so we are sitting on a fish mine… "
In this episode, Kim McKay discusses the Cockatoo Wingtag and Hollows as Homes citizen science projects with Ornithologist Dr Richard Major.
“By having many people taking part in this citizen science project, we hope to build up a good picture of what hollow availability is like, how much competition there is for hollows, and what we might need to do to look after this hollow resource. This data guides things like planting new trees, retention of particularly important trees, nest boxes, even cutting in hollows.” Dr Richard Major
Australian Museum CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay in conversation with Keren Ruki, Creative Producer of the Pacific Collections in the Cultural Collections, Conservation & Consultancy Branch at the Australian Museum.
“Of the 60,000 fantastic objects in the pacific collection, we have about 1,500 from New Zealand, so it was awesome for me, living away from New Zealand, to have a contact point back to my culture through the collections.” Keren Ruki
Join ‘long-rider’ Tim Cope for an evening on the Steppe.
“Discovery has never been just about mapping new places, it’s about human discoveries, about meeting people and bringing back those learnings to our own society and changing ones perspective of the world.” Tim Cope
In June 2004 Tim Cope set off on an epic journey: to ride horses on the of Genghis Khan, a 10,000 kilometre march the length of the Eurasian Steppe, from Karakorum in Mongolia, through Kazakhstan, Russia, Crimea and the Ukraine to Hungary. The journey took him more than three years and led him deep into the fabric of nomad society on the Eurasian steppe.
Six months into the trip, a Kazakh nomad concerned that Cope travelled alone, gave him a young dog named Tigon. Cope’s new companion would share his challenges, braving wolves, horse thieves and extreme temperatures, and offer comfort as Tim grieved the tragic loss of his father. Tim earned both Young Adventurer of the Year and Adventurer of the Year awards from the Australian Geographic Society, and Adventurer of the Year from National Geographic. His books and films have inspired audiences worldwide.
Join Tim in this recording on Thursday 7 April 2016 for an inspiring talk about his adventures as a ‘long-rider’, a special breed of explorer who travels to discover something of both the cultures they encounter and themselves.
Trailblazers Talks, presented by Australian Geographic, brings together Australia’s greatest living explorers for a series of inspirational events. The 21-weeks series was held on Thursday evenings at the Australian Museum from 25 February – 14 July 2016.
Australian Museum CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay in conversation with Ornithologist Dr Richard Major, Principal Research Scientist in Terrestrial Vertebrates Collection at the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI).
“In Sydney there would be fewer than 20 White Fronted Chats left… this bird was collected in 1867 from Homebush Bay, I find this quite an emotional little specimen. You think about how long they have been living there, we’ve managed to have them in the museum for 150 years, but now that population will be extinct very shortly, down to one individual.” Dr Richard Major
The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes reward excellence in the fields of research & innovation, leadership, science communication and school science.
In this podcast, Trailblazers of Australian Science at the 2016 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes launch include Dr Rebecca Johnson, Professor Terry Speed, Professor Maree Teesson, Dr Phillip Urquijo, Professor Emma Johnston and Dr Robyn Williams AM.
“Tonight’s Trailblazers are here to talk about their Eureka moments, the big issues facing Australia’s science, and of course there are many.” CEO and Executive Director of the Australian Museum Kim McKay
Australian Museum CEO and Executive Director Kim McKay in conversation with Dr Mark Eldridge, Principal Research Scientist in Mammalogy Collection at the Australian Museum Research Institute (AMRI). "It’s the thrill of discovery, but more than that it’s just an appreciation of how amazing Australia really is, and every day you learn something new about how animals have survived in this continent for a very long time, and trying to do your bit to make sure they can continue to survive. " Dr Mark Elridge
Kim McKay, the Director and CEO of the Australian Museum talks with Dr Jodi Rowley, amphibian biologist about her love of frogs and passion for communicating biodiversity conservation.
The first Trailblazers Talk taking place at the Australian Museum is a conversation between Australian Geographic's founding editor, Howard Whelan, and renowned Aussie explorer and mountaineer, Greg Mortimor.
Greg Mortimor was the first Australian to reach the summits of Mount Everest, K2, Annapurna II and Chongtar in the Himalaya – all without supplementary oxygen. Greg also enables adventurous tourists to explore Antarctica and pioneered ship-based adventures.
In this hour-long intimate and inspiring discussion, Greg recounts reaching the summit and the qualities of modern-day explorers.
"An Evening on Everest" was the first of 21 Trailblazers Talks taking place at the Australian Museum in Sydney in 2016, held weekly in parallel with the museum's Trailblazers exhibition celebrating Australia's 50 greatest explorers.
Australian Museum Director and CEO Kim McKay talks to Dr Chris Reid about his work in Entomology and field trips to Papua New Guinea .
Australian Museum Director and CEO Kim McKay talks to Dr Rebecca Johnson, Director of the Australian Museum Research Centre (AMRI) about her motivations to become a wildlife geneticist.
"I look at the DNA of pretty much any species of animal, wildlife in our world here at the Australian Museum basically means all animals but not typically plants, and that also excludes humans... There's so many reasons why you'd want to know about animal DNA..."
Australian Museum Director and CEO Kim McKay talks to Dr Jodi Rowley, amphibian biologist in Herpetology, whose research reveals amphibian diversity and her a passion for communicating biodiversity conservation.
“Here at AMRI, I’m so passionate about the work we do, of our three most senior scientists, two of them are women, we are very fortunate here to have that kind of leadership, that kind of expertise” Dr Rebecca Johnson Director, Australian Museum Research Institute, Science and Learning