![]() MAGNT Darwin in 2023 | |
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Established | 1981 |
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Location |
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Founder | Colin Jack-Hinton |
Director | Marcus Schutenko |
Website | www |
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) is the main museum in the Northern Territory. The headquarters of the museum is located in the inner Darwin suburb of The Gardens. The MAGNT is governed by the Board of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and is supported by the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory Foundation. Each year the MAGNT presents both internally developed exhibitions and travelling exhibitions from around Australia. It is also the home of the annual Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Australia's longest-running set of awards for Indigenous Australian artists.
In 1964 a bill was introduced into the Northern Territory Legislative Council to start a museum in Darwin by making the Museums and Art Galleries Board of the Northern Territory. [1] The first director, Colin Jack-Hinton, was appointed in 1970. The Old Town Hall in Smith Street in Darwin's CBD was chosen as the Museum's first location. The museum contained Southeast Asian and Pacific culture, maritime history, natural sciences, Indigenous Australian culture and contemporary art. Before Cyclone Tracy in 1974 the Old Town Hall was almost complete from renovations. The cyclone caused major structural damage to the building and a portion of the art collections were damaged. The salvaged collections were put in rented space scattered around Darwin.
On 1 July 2014, the MAGNT became an independent statutory body. [2]
It was not until three years after Cyclone Tracy that in 1977 the Commonwealth Government approved construction of a new museum at Bullocky Point in the suburb of Fannie Bay. Construction commenced on the new museum in 1979 after the Northern Territory was granted self-government, and funding for the new building was confirmed.
The building was opened on 10 September 1981 by the Governor General of Australia, Sir Zelman Cowen, and was known as the Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences. The museum featured the history, science and visual art of the region and its people. An extension was built and completed in 1992 to display the Northern Territory's maritime history. In 1993 the name of the museum was changed to the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
The MAGNT manages Fannie Bay Gaol, a historic gaol in the coastal suburb of Fannie Bay in Darwin.
The Defence of Darwin Experience at East Point in Darwin is run by the Darwin Military Museum and managed by MAGNT. It tells the story of the Northern Territory's World War II history, in particular the Bombing of Darwin in 1942, through interactive multimedia displays. It opened ahead of the 60th commemoration of the bombing in February 2012 and cost $10 million. [3]
The MAGNT manages the Museum of Central Australia and Strehlow Research Centre at the Araluen Arts Precinct in Alice Springs.
On 16 June 2015, the Northern Territory Government announced plans to refurbish the historic Chan Building in the centre of Darwin, as a world-class visual arts museum to be managed by the MAGNT. [4] The refurbishment which is expected to cost $18.3 million. The redevelopment has been controversial due to increasing costs and government approval processes. [5]
The Territory's art collection consists of over 30,000 items of art and material culture. [6] Famous exhibits include the body of Sweetheart, a crocodile notorious for attacking boats. [7] [8]
Starting on 23 May 2020 (later than scheduled owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia) and running until 25 October 2020, [9] a comprehensive solo exhibition of Nyapanyapa Yunupingu's work, "the moment eternal: Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu" was mounted. Featuring more than 60 of the artist's works, it was the first solo exhibition by an Aboriginal Australian artist to be held at MAGNT. [10]
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. The city has nearly 53% of the Northern Territory's population, with 139,902 at the 2021 census. It is the smallest, wettest, and most northerly of the Australian capital cities and serves as the Top End's regional centre.
Severe Tropical Cyclone Tracy was a small but destructive tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia, in December 1974. The small, developing, easterly storm was originally expected to pass clear of the city, but it turned towards it early on 24 December. After 10:00 p.m. ACST, damage became severe, with wind gusts reaching 217 km/h before instruments failed. The anemometer in Darwin Airport control tower had its needle bent in half by the strength of the gusts.
Fannie Bay Gaol is a historic gaol in Fannie Bay, Northern Territory, Australia. The gaol operated as Her Majesty's Gaol and Labour Prison, from 20 September 1883 until 1 September 1979. Glen SUTTON was the last Superintendent of Fannie Bay and the first Superintendent of the new gaol at Berrimah.
Yirrkala is a small community in East Arnhem Region, Northern Territory, Australia, 18 kilometres (11 mi) southeast of the large mining town of Nhulunbuy, on the Gove Peninsula in Arnhem Land.
The National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) is Australia's longest running Indigenous art award. Established in 1984 as the National Aboriginal Art Award by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, the annual award is commonly referred to as the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, the Telstra Award or Telstra Prize. It is open to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists working in all media.
Sweetheart was the name given to a 5.1 m (17 ft) male saltwater crocodile which Northern Territory folk legend claims was responsible for a series of attacks on boats in Australia in the 1970s.
Fannie Bay is a middle/inner suburb of the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. It is the traditional country and waterways of the Larrakia people.
Lake Alexander is a man-made lake named in honour of Alec Fong Lim who was Lord Mayor of Darwin from 1984 to 1990. The lake is located in Fannie Bay Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia and was officially opened on the 21 July 1991 for recreational use by the people of Darwin. The water in the lake is refreshed with pumps bringing water from the adjoining harbour through filters intended to prevent marine organisms from entering. This system has succeeded in keeping large predators such as saltwater crocodiles and bull sharks, and the deadly box jellyfish. However the lake has been closed to swimming twice, once due to a large Orange-spotted grouper and once due to an outbreak of a stinging species of Cassiopea jelly fish.
Gulumbu Yunupingu, after her death known as Djotarra or Ms Yunupingu, was an Australian Aboriginal artist and women's leader from the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory of Australia.
The Finniss River is a river south of Darwin, running west from the flank of Mount Minza, passing north of Litchfield National Park and flowing into the sea at Fog Bay. The East Branch of the Finniss was heavily polluted during the 1970s due to uranium mining at Rum Jungle mine about 105 km south of Darwin. The Finniss River Land Claim was presented to Judge John Toohey in 1981 but the former Rum Jungle mine site, contained within Area 4 of the Finniss River Land Claim (1981) was excluded from the grant to the Finniss River Land Trust due to the concerns of the Kungarakany and Warai peoples who are joint traditional Aboriginal owners of that area.
The Chan Building was located in State Square in central Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Geoff Todd is an Australian artist and social commentator and has a contemporary figurative style in drawing, painting and sculpture. Todd works between studios in Winnellie, Northern Territory and Ararat, Victoria.
Michelle Sue "Mickey" Dewar was an Australian historian who specialised in the history of the Northern Territory.
Brown's Mart, which now houses the Home of Territory Performing Arts, Brown's Mart Arts and the Brown's Mart Theatre, is a historic building located in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Ian Archibald is an Australian taxidermist responsible for the preparation of animal specimens exhibited in Australian museums.
Nyapanyapa Yunupingu was an Australian Yolngu painter and printmaker who lived and worked in the community at Yirrkala, Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory. Yunupingu created works of art that drastically diverge from the customs of the Yolngu people and made waves within the art world as a result. Due to this departure from tradition within her oeuvre, Yunupingu's work had varying receptions from within her community and the broader art world.
Mungurrawuy Yunupingu (c.1905–1979) was a prominent Aboriginal Australian artist and leader of the Gumatj clan of the Yolngu people of northeastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. He was known for his bark paintings.
Rerrkirrwanga Mununggurr is an Australian artist renowned for her finely detailed paintings on bark. In some publications Rerrkirrwanga is referred to as Rerrki, which appears to be a nickname from her older sister Marrnyula Mununggurr. She is the youngest daughter of the artist Djutjadjutja Munungurr. Her husband, Yalpi Yunupinu, helped train Rerrkirrwanga in the traditions that he painted in addition to what she learned from her father. In the 1990s, Rerrkirrwanga finished many of his works even though they are attributed to her father. She now has authority to paint her own stories and her large-scale works on bark are in Australian and international collections.
Wukun Wanambi was an Australian Yolngu painter, filmmaker and curator of the Marrakulu clan of northeastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.
Nancy Gaymala Yunupingu was a senior Yolngu artist and matriarch, who lived in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, Australia. She worked at the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in Yirrkala, where her work is still held, and is known for her graphic art style, bark paintings and printmaking.