Chau Chak Wing Museum
Established2020 (2020)[1]
DirectorMichael Dagostino[2]
OwnerUniversity of Sydney
Websitehttps://www.sydney.edu.au/museum/
The interior of the Chau Chak Wing Museum

The Chau Chak Wing Museum is a museum at the University of Sydney, Australia.[3]

It was formed by the amalgamation of the Nicholson Museum, the Macleay Museum, and the University Art Collection, with the building partially funded by a donation from businessman Chau Chak Wing.[4]

History

The collections began with the Nicholson Collection of antiquities in 1860 and continued to grow to include the Macleay Collections of natural history, ethnography, science and historic photography, and the University Art Collection. The three collections were brought together under Sydney University Museums in 2005.[5] The building was designed by Johnson Pilton Walker.[6] The museum is named after Chau Chak Wing, a Chinese-Australian businessman who donated $15 million for the building's construction in 2015.[7] Other major benefactors were Penelope Seidler, the Ian Potter Foundation and Nelson Meers Foundation.[7] Construction of the new museum finished in 2020 and the museum was officially open in November 2020.

Building

The building was designed by Johnson Pilton Walker.[6] The building is five-storey, with four levels of exhibition space. Indigenous Australian design features were incorporated design and landscaping of the building.[8] The forecourt incorporates a replica of a pre-invasion Aboriginal petroglyph of two wallabies originally located in Westleigh and the foyer prominently displays a Welcome to Country in the Sydney language.[8]

Collections

The museum has three main collections, the Macleay Collection, the Nicholson Collection, and the University of Art Collection.

Macleay Collection

The Macleay Collection is the oldest natural history collection in Australia, originating in the cabinets of Alexander Macleay, and expanding through the collecting networks of the Macleay family from Charles Darwin to Sir Stamford Raffles.[9]

It contains historically rich collections of Aboriginal, Torres Strait and Pacific Islanders' cultural material, including objects collected on the early scientific expedition, the Chevert, and those collected in the early years of anthropology at the University of Sydney.[9]

The work of University of Sydney scientists is reflected in the collection of scientific instruments and apparatus used in research and teaching, and is part of the story of scientific practice in Australia.[9]

The Historic Photograph Collection records life in Australia and the Pacific region, from the late 1840s to the 1960s, as captured by both commercial and amateur photographers. It includes a wide range of photographic formats, reflecting the changing technology of photography.[9]

In addition, the Macleay Collections holds material reflecting the museum's history, including a significant library, furniture, documents and ephemera relating to the major collectors.[9]

Nicholson Collection

The Nicholson Collection contains nearly 30,000 artefacts representing ancient cultures from the Mediterranean, North Africa, Middle East and Europe.[10] Spanning from the pre-Neolithic to the late medieval period, these artefacts hold intimate stories of people’s everyday lives, ancient environments, and cultural activity for over more than 10,000 years.

The collection was founded in 1860 by Sir Charles Nicholson (University Provost 1854–62) with a donation of Etruscan, Greek, Roman and Egyptian antiquities acquired to establish a museum, "calculated materially to promote the object[ives] for which the [The University of Sydney] was founded." (Nicholson's letter of presentation, 1860).[10] By 1870, the University of Sydney's Museum of Antiquities included over 3,000 artefacts and had been nicknamed the Nicholsonian Museum.[10]

Over the past 160 years, the Nicholson Collection has expanded through ambitious acquisition programs, generous donation and private bequests. International excavations in Egypt, Cyprus and the Middle East, partly sponsored by the University of Sydney have also contributed significant objects to the collection.[10]

University Art Collection

The collection contains more than 8000 works including paintings, sculptures and ceramics.[11] Among the first donors was one of its founders, Sir Charles Nicholson, who gave some 30 European paintings, tapestries and sculptures in 1865.[11] The strength of the collection lies in Australian painting – including Indigenous art – as well as significant holdings in European and Asian art.

Current exhibitions

Past exhibitions

2023

  • Australian Seashores[29]
  • Coastline[30]
  • D Harding with Kate Harding: Through a lens of visitation[31]
  • Instrumental 2[32]
  • Mikala Dwyer: Penelope and the Seahorse[33]
  • Object/Art/Specimen[34]
  • Sentient Paper[35]
  • Sherman Gift[36]

2022

2021

Awards

In 2021, the museum won the Museums and Galleries National Award (MAGNA) and two Museums Australasia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards (MAPDA).[46] The museum won the 2023 UMAC Award for its Object-Based Learning Program.[47] It is the first time the UMAC Award has been won by an Australian university.

Research

In July 2017, the museum launched a crowdsourcing project to help identify and catalogue the Woodhouse Photographic Archive of glass-plate negatives taken in Greece during the 1890s and early 1900s.[48]

There is an ongoing research project revising the dottyback fish subfamily Pseudoplesiopinae.[49]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chau Chak Wing Museum.
  1. ↑ Xiao, Alison (24 May 2018). "University stands by donor amidst UN bribing scandal". Honi Soit. Archived from the original on 6 March 2019.
  2. ↑ "University appoints new Director, Museums and Cultural Engagement". The University of Sydney. January 25, 2023.
  3. ↑ "A Museum in Australia Offers Special Glasses to Colour-blind Visitors". News18. AFP. 2022-08-23. Retrieved 2022-08-23.
  4. ↑ "$15 million donation to create new University of Sydney landmark museum". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2022-08-23.
  5. ↑ Ellis, David (2020). Director's choice. Chau Chak Wing Museum. London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd. ISBN 9781785511134.
  6. 1 2 "About us". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  7. 1 2 "Benefactors". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
  8. 1 2 "Starting over embedding First Nations principles in a new museum". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "Macleay Collections". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  10. 1 2 3 4 "Nicholson Collection". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  11. 1 2 "University Art Collection". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  12. ↑ "Ambassadors". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  13. ↑ "Ancient Cultures of the Middle East". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  14. ↑ "Barbara McGrady: Australia Has a Black History". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-11-23.
  15. ↑ "Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  16. ↑ "Crossroads". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  17. ↑ "Hayley Millar Baker Nyctinasty". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-11-23.
  18. ↑ "Hercules: Myth and Legacy". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  19. ↑ "Impressions of Greece". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  20. ↑ "Instrumental 3". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  21. ↑ "Mediterranean Identities". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  22. 1 2 "The Egyptian Galleries". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  23. ↑ "Natural Selections: animal worlds". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  24. ↑ "Ömie barkcloth: Pathways of nioge". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  25. ↑ "Photography and the performative". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  26. ↑ "Roman Spectres". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  27. ↑ "The Staged Photograph". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  28. ↑ "Tidal Kin". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  29. ↑ "Australian Seashores". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  30. ↑ "Coastline". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  31. ↑ "D Harding with Kate Harding: Through a lens of visitation". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  32. ↑ "Instrumental 2". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  33. ↑ "Penelope and the Seahorse". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  34. ↑ "Object/Art/Specimen". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  35. ↑ "Sentient Paper". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  36. ↑ "The Sherman Gift". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  37. ↑ "Animal gods". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  38. ↑ "Instrumental". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  39. ↑ "Kamay (Botany Bay) spears: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  40. ↑ "Light & Darkness". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  41. ↑ "Pacific views". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  42. ↑ "Sarah Goffman: Applied Arts". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  43. ↑ "The Business of Photography". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  44. ↑ "Daniel Boyd: Pediment/Impediment". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  45. ↑ "Gululu dhuwala Djalkiri". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  46. ↑ "Chau Chak Wing Museum wins three national museum awards". University of Sydney. Archived from the original on 29 October 2021. Retrieved 12 October 2021.
  47. ↑ "UMAC Award – International Council of Museums Committee for University Museums and Collections". 2023-09-25. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  48. ↑ "Woodhouse archive". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  49. ↑ "Pseudoplesiopinae". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.

33°53′07″S 151°11′26″E / 33.8853°S 151.1905°E / -33.8853; 151.1905

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.