Chau Chak Wing Museum

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Chau Chak Wing Museum
Chau Chak Wing Museum April 2021.jpg
Chau Chak Wing Museum
Established2020 (2020) [1]
LocationUniversity Pl, Camperdown, NSW, Australia
Collections Archaeology, Art, Ethnography, Natural History
DirectorMichael Dagostino [2]
ArchitectJohnson Pilton Walker
Owner University of Sydney
Website https://www.sydney.edu.au/museum/
The interior of the Chau Chak Wing Museum Interior of the Chau Chak Wing Museum April 2021.jpg
The interior of the Chau Chak Wing Museum

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

Contents

It was formed by the amalgamation of the Nicholson Museum, the Macleay Museum, and the University Art Collection. [4] [5]

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. [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] The museum was officially opened on the 18 November 2020. [8]

In September 2023 it hosted the International Council of Museums Committee for University Museums and Collections Conference, "Truth-telling through university museums and collections". [9]

Directors

Building

The building is located on Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, opposite the Main Quadrangle and Fisher Library. [5] The building was designed by Johnson Pilton Walker. [11] The building is five-storey, with four levels of exhibition space with six main galleries: Ian Potter Gallery, Macleay Gallery, Nicholson Gallery, Penelope Gallery, Power Gallery, and the China Gallery. Indigenous Australian design features were incorporated design and landscaping of the building. [12] 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. [12]

Construction of the new museum was completed in 2020. [5]

Collections

The museum has three main collections, the Macleay Collection, the Nicholson Collection, and the University of Art Collection. [5]

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. [13]

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. [13]

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. [13]

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. [13]

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. [13]

Nicholson Collection

The Nicholson Collection contains nearly 30,000 artefacts representing ancient cultures from the Mediterranean, North Africa, Middle East and Europe. [14] 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). [14] By 1870, the University of Sydney's Museum of Antiquities included over 3,000 artefacts and had been nicknamed the Nicholsonian Museum. [14]

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. [14]

University Art Collection

The collection contains more than 8000 works including paintings, sculptures and ceramics. [15] Among the first donors was one of its founders, Sir Charles Nicholson, who gave some 30 European paintings, tapestries and sculptures in 1865. [15] 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

2024

2023

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). [51] The museum won the 2023 UMAC Award for its object-based learning program. [52] It is the first time the UMAC Award has been won by an Australian university.

Teaching

Internally the museum's object-based learning program aims to provide access to the collections to university students. [53] This has including increasing cross-disciplinary collaborations with parts of the university that did not traditionally engage with the collections, such as the University of Sydney Business School. [5] [54]

Research

Egyptian-Australian community initiative

In 2022 the curators of the Nicholson Collection and our research partners from the Egypt's Dispersed Heritage Project, Heba Abd Al-Gawad and Alice Stevenson, invited members of the Egyptian-Australian community to a weekend long focus group to discuss the ways in which Egyptian heritage is interpreted and ways forward for participation. [55]

Egyptian stelae

This interdisciplinary project examines 20 ancient Egyptian stelae, made from limestone, pottery and wood that were produced and decorated between the New Kingdom (c.1500–1069 BCE) and the Ptolemaic Period (c.332–30 BCE). [56]

Excavating MacGregor

The first Administrator of British New Guinea, William MacGregor, made a significant collection of objects between 1888 and 1898, specifically for its future citizens. The aim of the project is to re-assemble and re-connect this material by 'excavating' its private and official components, focusing on the makers and traders to disentangle the social relationships embedded in the objects. [57]

Human remains research project

This research project seeks to understand better different public attitudes and responses to the display of human remains with a particular focus on museum visitors and Egyptian communities in Australia’s diaspora, in Egypt, and elsewhere. [58] [59]

The Jericho Research Project

An ongoing research project to investigate the museum's holdings from Jericho in the West Bank. [60] The collection was obtained as the Nicholson Museum was one of the financial sponsors for Kathleen Kenyon's archaeological research in the region. [60]

Paphos Theatre Archeological Project

Ongoing excavations at the ancient theatre and surrounding environs of Nea Paphos that was the capital of Cyprus under the Ptolemaic and then Roman administrations. [61] The Paphos excavations are supported by the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens. [62]

Reconstructing museum specimen data

This project which examines trade processes to reconstruct and understand the mechanisms of natural history trade. [63]

Revision of the dottyback fish subfamily Pseudoplesiopinae

The Pseudoplesiopinae is a subfamily of small coral-reef fishes found throughout the Indo-Pacific. The study aims to determine species within the subfamily and investigate their phylogenetic relationships. [64] [65] [66]

Woodhouse Archive Flickr Project

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. [67] [68]

Publications

The museum has published a biannual magazine, Muse, since 2012. [69] The magazine has won design awards from Museums Australia. [70]

Other publications include:

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References

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  52. ↑ "UMAC Award – International Council of Museums Committee for University Museums and Collections". 2023-09-25. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
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  54. ↑ Wardak, Dewa; Razeed, Abdul; Thogersen, Jane; Guerry, Eve (2021). "Collaborating on a creative solution to teach creativity to Business students". Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (Special Issue 22: Compendium of Innovative Practice): 1–6.
  55. ↑ "Initiating an Egyptian-Australian dialogue at the Chau Chak Wing Museum | Egyptian Streets". 2022-11-11. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
  56. ↑ "Egyptian stelae". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
  57. ↑ "Excavating MacGregor". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
  58. ↑ "Human Remains Research Project". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2024-02-27.
  59. ↑ Baker, Jordan (2024-01-27). "Mummified body parts to be removed from Sydney museum amid intense global debate". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2024-02-27.
  60. 1 2 "Jericho project". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2024-02-27.
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  63. ↑ "Reconstructing museum specimen data". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2024-03-08.
  64. ↑ "Pseudoplesiopinae". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2023-10-08.
  65. ↑ Gill, Anthony G.; Edwards, A. J. (1999-10-20). "Monophyly, interrelationships and description of three new genera in the dottyback fish subfamily Pseudoplesiopinae (Teleostei: Perciformes: Pseudochromidae)". Records of the Australian Museum. 51 (2): 141–160. doi:10.3853/j.0067-1975.51.1999.1302. ISSN   0067-1975.
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  69. ↑ "MUSE magazine and other publications". The University of Sydney. Retrieved 2024-03-07.
  70. ↑ Turner, Michael (2013). "MUSE wins prestigious design award". MUSE (5): 1.

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