CEO'S NEWS

GovHack reveals all

Last weekend, WAM and DCA portfolio staff contributed to a Government-sponsored marathon 46-hour event called GovHack, where many public bodies across Australia open up their data sets for teams to ‘hack’ it and make it better or more useful.

Here in Perth dozens of people took part and I must congratulate our own Les Delaforce and his team #oncountry for winning three awards for developing a digital storytelling platform that enables both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal audiences to link data sets and stories about art, history, music and heritage based on their location. It is a kind of combination of ‘mashed’ database and augmented reality.

#oncountry won Best Project Connecting Aboriginal People and Culture Prize and was Runner Up in the Connecting Regional WA. Les, himself, also won the individual award for GovHack Newbie Prize for Creativity, Innovation and Dedication. You can find the team’s site here http://on-country.org/ and their YouTube pitch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqR2vBk0paI&feature=youtu.be

Well done, also, to Andrew Rowe who provided mentoring and support to teams in the use of the Museum's public datasets over the weekend, including a two-person team called “Bangers’n’Mashup” which won the DCA prize for best use of Arts and Culture Data, and Best Citizen Service Hack for their open data project. You can find their project here: http://open-data.yes-we-ckan.org/ State winners will compete in national finals in September.  Congratulations and good luck to all.

NAIDOC Week

The WA Museum has had a busy week of NAIDOC celebrations. The NAIDOC Perth Opening Ceremony at Wellington Square in East Perth on 5 July was well attended, despite the miserable weather. The New Museum Project team was there promoting its WA Faces project and had a number of people lining up to have their photos taken. WAM staff did a great job at our stall talking to people about the Museum, including promoting Katta Djinoong, Lustre and Ilgari Wangga (Sky Talk). Those who took the time to visit the WA Museum stand received a free family pass to the WA Maritime Museum which is valid during NAIDOC Week.

On Monday the photograph of Joobaitch, a Whadjuk Elder, was unveiled at the Collections and Research Centre. WA Museum Aboriginal Advisory Committee (WAMAAC) member Bev Port-Louis stood alongside me to do the honours.

The administration building at Welshpool is, of course, also known as Joobaitch House. Joobaitch lived in the area in the early 1900s. He was born in 1837 and was the son of well-known Nyoongar leader Yellagonga. Joobaitch worked alongside Daisy Bates as one of her key informants during her research of Nyoongar people. Joobaitch died in 1907.

I am pleased that from this NAIDOC Week onwards we can now properly acknowledge the Aboriginal leader and statesman after whom the building is named.

An exhibition called Ilgari Wangga (Sky Talk) was launched on Tuesday. It features art works by Yamaji artists which celebrate the customs, stories and beliefs connected to the sky and universe. The exhibition is a collaboration between the artists and astrophysicists who worked on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project. The formal launch and opening was attended by visiting Yamaji artists and their families. Also in attendance were WAMAAC Chair Irene Stainton, Bev Port-Louis, and SKA Australia’s Jerry Skinner, who officially opened the exhibition. The exhibition is in the Community Access Gallery at the back of Katta Djinoong and I encourage everyone to visit.

The WA Museum in Albany has also hosted NAIDOC Week activities all week including unique art workshops by highly acclaimed national and international Noongar/Yamatji artist ‘Tjyllyungoo’ Lance Chadd. There has been live didgeridoo music by local Minang man Graeme Simpson, with dancing and Dreaming stories for children. The school holiday program is also inspired by NAIDOC Week.

In Kalgoorlie, the WA Museum hosted a NAIDOC Family Day which included Aboriginal crafts and singing in traditional language with Elder Josie Boyle, a sausage sizzle, art and craft activities for the kids and performances by traditional dance group ‘Ngadju Dancers’. Visitors could also taste kangaroo stew, kangaroo tail and damper.

Thank you to everyone who has helped make WAM’s NAIDOC Week events possible, in particular Senior Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Advisor Deanne Fitzgerald. Also heavily involved in assisting Deanne was DCA Aboriginal Trainee Josh Gelmi. To the WAM staff who attended the NAIDOC Opening Ceremony on Sunday well done and thank you for your team work and for participating in this event.

Testing out school holiday activities… on live TV

Channel Nine’s Today Perth News visited the WA Museum – Perth early last Friday morning. Learning and Creativity Manager Wayne Walters took presenter Lisa Fernandez on a tour of the Discovery Centre and showed her some of the school holiday activities on offer – all on live television!

Wayne did a great job on camera. In case you missed it, you can watch the segment here:

Lisa also presented the weather from inside the Discovery Centre later in the bulletin.

It was a 6am start, so thank you to the staff members who worked behind-the-scenes to make sure we could take part in this fantastic opportunity to promote the Museum and the work we do.

Welshpool redevelopment update

I am pleased to say that work on the second level of the new Welshpool building commenced on Monday this week with the casting of the plant room slab. The Ritek wall installation (using a pre-fabricated permanent formwork panel system) is also continuing on this upper level. As well as the plant room, the second floor will contain the new laboratories and associated store room and a central hot-desk area.

Work on the ground floor services also began this week. A much needed lift will also be installed to access level 1 of the administration building. It is heartening to see the construction coming to form!

Targeting audiences and defining our brand

I am also pleased to announce this week that one of Perth’s leading agencies, The Brand Agency, has been appointed to continue work on the Brand Project from the design phase onwards.

As many of you will be aware, the brand project is well underway and is critical in helping us redefine who we are as a business. We have recently finalised the audience research phase and brand strategy and are now proceeding into the design phase, to bring the brand to life. We will continue to keep you advised and involved as the project progresses.

We have also extended the contract with our current research partner Morris Hargreaves McIntyre who, as many of you are aware, are working with us on our audience research program. This is critical to our core business as it helps us to better understand the needs of our audiences, so we can better target our services.  If you have any queries on the branding project or audience research program, please contact WAM’s Marketing Manager Simone Withers.

Vale Professor Geoffrey Shellam

It was with great sadness that we heard of the death of Professor Geoff Shellam last week. Geoff, as we all knew him, was Professor of the School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Co-Director of The Marshall Centre for Infectious Diseases Research and Training at UWA. He had a giant reputation in the field of medical immunology.

He won the prestigious Eleanor Roosevelt International Cancer Fellowship to research at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland, USA. He moved to The University of Western Australia in 1977, becoming Professor of Microbiology in 1985.

Geoff was an enthusiastic yachtsman and it is probably his interest in wooden sailing vessels that brought him into contact with the WA Museum, leading to his role as an enthusiastic and active member of our Maritime Museum Advisory Committee, on which he continued to serve until his death.

The WA Museum acknowledges his significant contribution to our work, but also his enthusiasm for our cause and staunch support of our aspirations. He was also one of the kindest, most generous men that I have ever had the pleasure to meet: it may sound clichéd but Geoff was a true gentleman.

Our thoughts are with Geoff’s wife, Professor Fiona Stanley, his two daughters Tiffany and Hallie and all his family and friends.