Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West is a community museum which actively involves the people of Melbourne’s west and others in documenting, preserving and interpreting the richness and depth of the region’s social, industrial and environmental history.

Directors Report

2003 was a year when the Living Museum made significant contributions culturally to Melbourne’s western region, Victoria and the international community . It was a year when the Museum and its members were also rewarded for their work and commitment. 2003 was also a year when Arts Victoria took an extra interest in the Living Museum and made moves to consolidate the future of this unique ecomuseum.

The year started well with bicentennial celebrations - of the first exploration of the Maribyrnong and Yarra Rivers by Europeans in 1803 - organised by the Living Museum in conjunction with Friends of the Maribyrnong Valley, several local councils, history societies, rowing clubs and other organisations. The event challenged the conventional wisdom of Batman as the founder of the site of Melbourne.

Another project, ‘Custodians Welcome’, where at Pipemakers Park the local Melbourne Aboriginal community welcomed newly arrived migrants from Burma to the land, has been reported enthusiastically to other Burmese overseas as a profound and significant collective experience.

A new lease arrangement with Parks Victoria and a major grant from Heritage Victoria has enabled the Museum to use the large bluestone building at Pipemakers Park for cultural activities. This year the space was used as a setting for a contemporary art show, ‘Picnic’, featuring Melbourne artists whose work is held by major art galleries in Australia. The show attracted new audiences to the Museum and brought a major cultural event to the western suburbs. Aphids production company transformed the large space into a surreal landscape to present a new and innovative theatre production, ‘Glass Garden’, which also attracted new audiences to the park and the Museum.

Partnership continued strongly with the region’s Aboriginal community and we shared the community’s excitement at the launch of a new Aboriginal centre at Highpoint named, ‘The Gathering Place’. The Museum has worked with the centre’s committee for nearly two years on this project and continues to participate in organising the annual NAIDOC activities. The Aboriginal community in turn has strongly supported the Custodians Welcome project.

This year four members of staff and committee received Centenary Federation Medals ‘For contribution made to Australian Society’, a satisfying recognition of commitment. The Museum won the Victorian Community History Award 2003 for best exhibition/display for the exhibition, ‘A Stone Upon A Stone’, which has travelled throughout Victoria and New South Wales, including a stint at the Domain in Sydney.

All this work on strained resources has been recognised by our major funding body, Arts Victoria, which late in the year initiated a consultancy to investigate an appropriate business model to ensure sustainability for the Museum. The new year will see expert support for the Living Museum to structure its resources to deal with its constantly evolving cultural engagement with the region and beyond.

The Museum’s Management Committee worked hard through the year dealing with the constant demands of corporate governance to support such a cultural program. Particularly on the process of re-accreditation through the Museums Accreditation Program which works on maintaining standards in museums.

The Committee also contributed to the many events and projects that took place in 2003. They were involved in the steady flow of less visible museum work such as meetings, workshops, phone calls, emails, proposals and all kinds of exchanges working toward the initiation and progress of cultural contribution to history and heritage of unimaginable variety.

Part of this work is maintenance of the setting, the park and gardens, which are used constantly as a context for Museum projects and programs. The Museum continued to work closely with Parks Victoria, this year with input from the Western Bulldogs, in shaping and maintaining the park through projects and programs to upgrade and enhance the environment and cultural assets of Pipemakers Park.

What has been particularly rewarding this year is how the participatory model of cultural engagement has become more understood,for example approaches to the Museum from many individuals and organizations in the community who now see the ‘museum’ in their community as an important institution to play a role in addressing current issues.

So 2003 was an eventful year where the Living Museum initiated and participated in a number of significant cultural engagements locally, nationally, even internationally. A year that showed how the local community is better understanding how to utilise the particular cultural assets that such a museum can provide.

Peter Haffenden, Director