Revealing the Museum: About the Memory Room

For the 50th anniversary celebrations, the Shire of Exmouth wanted to create a space for the community share their memories. A place to meet with old friends, to talk, to reminisce and to leave a record of their memories of Exmouth for others to see.

The Western Australian Museum’s team working on the New Museum Project had been researching Exmouth’s origins and relationship with the United States. The Shire’s idea of a memory room sounded like a perfect way to learn more about Exmouth from those that understand it best – the community – and so, a collaboration was born.

Past and present Exmouth residents were asked to share their photographs and memories. These materials were put together in the form of scrapbook or ‘Memory Book’ of those things most significant to them about Exmouth. We recorded their oral histories and digitised many, many photographs.

It was these materials that we took to the students at Exmouth District High School to curate into the exhibition you see here.