The Australian National Maritime Museum reopens on Monday June 22 with new exhibitions which investigate the history of our region.
The exhibitions are part of the Encounters 2020 program focused around Cooks 1770 voyage and centre around the theme of dual perspectives on our history including the ‘view from the shore’ to what has previously been just the ‘view from the ship’.
Under Southern Skies
This exhibition includes new acquisitions and collection objects from Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Indigenous Pacific navigation, as well a selection of important new material associated with James Cook and other European navigators.
In the past, there has been little recognition of the knowledge and skill of First Peoples in their use of celestial navigation. There has been a tendency to see Western navigation history as the start of the science of navigation. This new exhibition shows the history and science of Indigenous navigating, the use of Pacific navigation by Western voyagers (eg Tupaia and Cook), as well as the more well-known stories of Dutch, Portuguese, French, Spanish and British navigation, mapping and charting.
Here: Kupe to Cook
Features contemporary artworks by 20 leading Aotearoa New Zealand, Pacifica and Australian First Peoples artists who investigate the long and complex histories and legacies of South Pacific voyaging – from the legendary Polynesian Kupe over 1,000 years ago to the arrival of James Cook in 1769.
The exhibition is on loan NZ’s Pataka Art+ Museum and dismantles misconceptions about the discovery of Aotearoa New Zealand and the people’s connection to the Pacific Ocean.