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From Batavia to Australia II: Negotiating Changes in Curatorial Practices.
Andrea Witcomb, Research Institute for Cultural Heritage, Curtin University of Technology
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witcomba@spectrum.curtin.edu.au
Forget the mysterious, darkened gallery where the remains of an old 17th Century wooden ship rise out of the floor and tower above your head. Enter instead into a glass and steel building on the water’s edge looking out to sea and on the spot where Captain Sterling landed to found a settlement on the Swan River. Here you will encounter not the darkened timbers of the Batavia but the bright white hull of Australia II in full sail.
This shining new building is the new maritime museum in Fremantle, due to open late in 2001. It is part of a major new redevelopment of Victoria Quay, a redevelopment that has locals and the maritime archaeology curators up in arms, but the full financial and political support of the state’s Premier. The redevelopment is causing immense pain and a process of cultural change within the existing museum. This is a process that I will explore through John Hartley’s claim in the Politics of Pictures that the "smiling professions" are gaining control of public instruction. The new maritime museum is developing into a space in which "performance is measured by consumer satisfaction, where self is dedicated to other, success to service, where knowledge is niceness and education is entertainment". I will discuss the effect of these expectations on the traditional curatorial culture of the existing maritime museum with the aim of exploring what kinds of spaces are left for specialised knowledge in tourist oriented spaces of display.
