Canberra / Kamberri, Place & People at CMAG opens on Canberra Day

On Monday, March 13 - Canberra Day - Chief Minister Andrew Barr will open Canberra/Kamberri, Place & People.

The permanent exhibition, curated by Virginia Rigney and Hannah Paddon, features 211 items drawn from CMAG's collection, ranging from paintings to craftworks to clothing,

They are used to explore the stories, events and people that have shaped Canberra's history and identity, both before and after the place was selected as the site of the national capital in 1909 up until the present.

Exhibits will be changed periodically to keep the exhibition fresh and to highlight new items and themes.

The perspectives and stories represented range from First Nations people to colonists, early city planners and parliamentarians, migrants and the arrival of more people in recent years who have contributed to Canberra's history and culture.

Among the displays are pieces of surveying equipment used in the area, early artefacts of women's activism, and a reed necklace presented by Ngunnawal leader Noolop to Minna Close Palmer, whose parents managed the Palmerville Estate at Ginninderra, on her marriage to Francis James Davis in 1862.

"Putting them all together enables the telling of stories between the objects themselves," Rigney said, adding this was "a more natural way" to convey narratives about the Canberra region rather than keeping the two fields separate.

Rigney pitched the idea for the show. "It was put together in four months - really fast," she said.

A native Canberran - "I was born in 1963, the year before the lake filled" - Rigney spent 30 years away from the city, working in Britain and around Australia, returning to become a curator at CMAG in 2018.

The exhibition was a celebration of Canberra's past and present and was intended to cater to a range of people, from school students to locals to tourists, Rigney said.

Another hope was to draw attention to CMAG and its offerings and raise its profile, both to visitors and to Canberrans.

Rigney said despite the institution's central location, next to the Canberra Theatre in the city, "A lot of people don't know we exist".

The exhibition will also include moving images from the National Film and Sound Archives.

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