Queensland Museum & Community Collections

Author: Dr Jo Wills

  • Up close & personal: falling in love… with objects

    Sometimes I fall head over heels in love with the objects and collections I work with in far north Queensland. I remember them. I seek them out on site visits to make sure they are still there. I undertake research on them in my spare time, and try to understand…

  • 150ZK: Truth Telling and the Coming of the Light

    150ZK: Truth Telling and the Coming of the Light

    Two new exhibitions at Gab Titui Cultural Centre, THURSDAY ISLAND On June 17, Gab Titui Cultural Centre opened two new exhibitions to commemorate 150 Years of Coming of the Light. One explores the history and impact of Christianity on the community through an historic timeline. In the other, artists from…

  • More than just tea towels: the migrants, makers and merchandise of Reef Productions

    A new exhibition for Cairns Museum On Friday 28 May, Cairns Museum opened a new temporary exhibition called Reef Productions: migrants, makers and merchandise.  Timed to coincide with Reconciliation Week, the exhibition explores the story of a Cairns-based screen printing company that began in the 1970s. Running for almost 20…

  • Djabugay: Nganydji bulmba maminga (we love and care for country)

    Bama mara-nyiwul ngurral-na maying Queensland Museum MDO malim.(Six people from the Djabugay region have attended Queensland Museum MDO training in Kuranda to learn more about caring for cultural heritage collections). Djabugay Aboriginal Corporations have a small collection of cultural objects. In 2019 they contacted the MDO program to find out…

  • Reopening Atherton Chinatown

    After four months of closure due to COVID 19, the National Trust of Queensland (NTQ) have been preparing to reopen the Hou Wang Temple and museum displays in the Tableland Regional Council’s Old Post Office Gallery in Atherton. Like other cultural venues across the state, reopening is not as simple…

  • Back on the road – heading west to Croydon

    Last week, after almost three months working from home, MDOs Jo Wills and Ewen McPhee traveled to Croydon in western Queensland. While it was great to be back on the road, the journey also gave us the chance to see how small towns have been impacted by the COVID 19…

  • The mystery of the Quetta Tea Towel

    “Rarely if ever before has so deep and so general a gloom been cast over the community of this colony as that which has been occasioned by the sad catastrophe which occurred in Torres Straits on the night of the 24th February. The wreck of the R.M.S. Quetta in the…

  • Valuing shared learning at Herberton Mining Museum

    Community collaboration has always been central to my work as a MDO. And, in our current climate, with the restrictions that COVID-19 is placing upon travel and gatherings, I thought I’d tell you about a recent training series I ran at Herberton Mining Museum, Creating workshops for collection policies and…

  • Two worlds: Cairns Museum’s latest temporary exhibition brings the museum to life

    “Everybody…  it’s going to get LOUD!” So warned Cairns Museum Manager, Susan Gibson, as CADCAI’s lion dancers and musicians geared up to begin their performance. Celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Metal Rat, and the opening of the latest temporary exhibition, dancers made their way through the museum and…