AFFM Friends January 2025

FRIENDS R E V I E W

ISSN 0818 - 8742

JANUARY 2025

From the President I World Federation of Friends of Museums I Exhibitions: Pompeii at NMA; Ethel Carrick and Anne Dangar at NGA; Carol Jerrems Portraits at NPG; Hopes and Fears: migrant heritage at NLA; Magritte at AGNSW I TMAG Friends floor talks I Professor Deb Verhoeven Third Annual Rod Wallace Lecture I Miss Porter’s House and a motivational speaker I Walla Walla’s Wendish Past I Museums and Libraries in Accra Ghana I Innovative textile work in Tamworth Regional Gallery exhibition Australian Federation of Friends of Museums

www.ausffm.org.au

Carolyn Forster OAM retires as President of the World Federation of Friends of Museums

World Federation of Friends of Museums (WFFM)

From the President

Yvette Pratt

Dear Friends, Hello everyone and my very best wishes for this holiday season.

It’s hard to believe that 2024 has drawn to a close.

It has been an enormous year for us all and there has been a common theme in my discussions with Federation members over the last few months – audiences are back and keen to engage more than ever before!

That presents both opportunity and challenges for us all and it underscores the importance of a membership body that brings together members and friends organisations from across Australia to share insights, knowledge and best practice.

The AFFM continues to grow in strength and influence thanks to your participation, willingness to share and commitment to creating world leading member and friends experiences for your respective organisations.

As our minds turn to festive celebrations with family and friends, let me take this opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to the contribution you make to our membership ‘family’ and to wish you all the best of the season, however you celebrate at this time of year.

Italo Scaietta, the new WFFM President, with Carolyn Forster, President of Honour

Carolyn Forster’s speech to the WFFM General Assembly, Luxembourg, 2-5 May 2024

Have a safe and enjoyable summer, and I look forward to reconnecting in 2025.

Yvette Pratt President, Australian Federation of Friends of Museums

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AFFM News

Left to right: Catherine de Jamblinne, Vice-President, Friends of Luxembourg, Italo Scaietta, WFFM President, Carolyn Forster, and Florence Reckinger, President, Friends of Luxembourg

Museums play a vital role in modern society. Through the display of objects and their stories they invite us to better understand where we have come from and learn about people and places that are new to us. The cultural sector is often front and centre in soft diplomacy – cultural exchange through exhibitions and programming provides a unique insight into global cultures – they show us our differences but more importantly, they also highlight our commonalities. In a world that is becoming more polarised, the work of museums has never been more important.

And when we look to truly successful museums, what we often find at their centre is a Friends community: a group that advocates and supports the broad work of the institution, on every level.

Italo Scaietta, the new WFFM President, with Carolyn Forster, President of Honour

Friends groups provide a community where members can share ideas, be active participants and stay connected.

And yet their influence and importance are often underestimated. I would like to share a story about the impact a Friends community can have.

from business and everyday Australians.

Today the Friends group includes thousands of Australians from across the country – active members who continue to support and engage with the institution and the broader cultural sector.

I have been a member of the Friends at the National Museum of Australia for more than 25 years – before there was even a building or an agreed institution.

Today a magnificent museum stands on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra – and it was a committed Friends group who made this a reality.

In the 1980s the ‘museum friends’ rallied support and lobbied the Australian Government to build a museum for the people – this was an eclectic group made up of actors, politicians, leaders

Embracing a museum Friends community can only strengthen the work of museums – Friends groups assist with donations, attendance at events and broad advocacy and, as we all know, much more. At the National Museum of Australia the Friends group uses a quote from Herodotus: ‘Of all possessions a friend is the most precious.’

I encourage you to place this sentiment at the centre of your institution and see it go from strength to strength.

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Summer exhibitions

in AFFM member institutions

ACT

Recreation of a triclinium in Pompeii.

A triclinium was a dining room in an elite Roman house.

Image courtesy of Gedeon Projects

Pompeii at the National Museum of Australia Another blockbuster exhibition on the ancient world, Pompeii, is on display at the National Museum of Australia, following the enormous success of its previous major temporary exhibition, Discovering Ancient Egypt.

Using evocative objects from the excavation of the ancient Roman city destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius

in 79 AD, and recreations and immersive experiences that take the visitor back to those fateful hours when an entire city disappeared under volcanic ash, the exhibition explores what is known as the ‘Pompeii paradox’, a catastrophic disaster that nevertheless preserved the stories of everyday life in a Roman city of 2000 years ago. The ways in which archaeologists have brought these stories to life are also told in the exhibition.

National Museum Director Katherine McMahon said, ‘Exhibitions like Pompeii, which combine incredible archaeological artefacts with novel and innovative immersive elements, provide visitors with memorable and inspiring experiences. These are exactly the kind of experiences which keep people coming back to museums’ (Weekend Australian Review, 14-15 December 2024).

Daily until 4 May 2025 Recreation of a triclinium in Pompeii. A triclinium was a dining room in an elite Roman house.

Image courtesy of Gedeon Projects

Ethel Carrick, Beach scene, c.1909, National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/C anberra, purchased 1976

Ethel Carrick and Anne Dangar at National Gallery of Australia Parallel exhibitions of work by early twentieth-century artists, painter Ethel Carrick and potter Anne Dangar, highlight the achievements of Australian women who deserve to be better known.

Ethel Carrick (1872-1952) was a gifted painter and colourist, and was among the first artists to introduce a postimpressionist approach to Australia with her bold and vibrant paintings first exhibited in the early 1900s. The exhibition, comprising 140 works, is the first retrospective of her work in nearly half a century, and the most comprehensive to date.

Anne Dangar (1885-1951), who is known principally as a ceramic artist, was a member of the European avant-garde in the twentieth century, and the only Australian artist to make a meaningful contribution to Cubism in France, her adopted home. A dedicated promoter of modern art in Australia, she influenced the development of abstraction in Sydney from the 1930s onwards.

(1934–50), Anne Dangar, Pot with spiral decoration, anberra, purchased 2002 National Gallery of Australia, Kamberri/C

Daily until 27 April 2025

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Summer exhibitions

Summer exhibitions

in AFFM member institutions

in AFFM member institutions

Carol Jerrems Portraits at National Portrait Gallery Carol Jerrems, whose brief career spanned only twelve years before she died at the age of 30, was one of Australia’s most influential photographers of the twentieth century.

Her practice, which charted a decade of social change in 1970s Australia, depicted the women’s movement,

ACT

First Nations activism, youth subcultures and the arts scene of that time.

The exhibition showcases more than 140 works from the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery of Australia and the National Library of Australia.

Daily until Sunday 2 March 2025

Bobbi Sykes, Aboriginal Medical Service, 197 3 Carol Jerrems. Natio nal Gallery of Austr alia, Canberra. Gift of Mr s Joy Jerrems 1981. © The Estate of Car ol Jerrems

Below: A series of images from Carol Jerrems’ iconic Vale Street (1975) dominates the foyer of the National Portrait Gallery. Photo: Roslyn Russell Recreation of a triclinium in Pompeii. A triclinium was a dining room in an elite Roman house.

Image courtesy of Gedeon Projects

Hopes and Fears: migrant heritage at National Library of Australia Many Australians have migration stories, from the early days of the convict era, to the waves of immigrants from the early nineteenth century to the present.

Hopes and Fears celebrates the people, personal journeys and stories of resilience, hope and transformation that have shaped our nation’s history using photographs, documents and objects.

Above and below: Advertising for the highly successful stage show, Wogs out of Work (1987–1991) and Shaddup You Face, a hit song from 1980 based on the vernacular spoken by the Italian grandparents of singer-songwriter Joe Dolce.

Photo: Roslyn Russell

Waves of migration have produced some uniquely Australian comic creations. A previously disparaging term for southern Europe and Middle Eastern migrants in post-World War II Australia – ‘wogs’ – was turned around and transformed into ethnic humour in the 1980s with the creations of stage and television shows and a charttopping record in Australia, Britain and ten other countries.

Daily until 2 February 2025

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Summer exhibitions

in AFFM member institutions

NSW

Magritte at Art Gallery of NSW Belgian surrealist René Magritte (1898-1967) is widely recognised for his renderings of ordinary objects and scenes – clouds, bowler hats, bells, pipes and apples have all appeared in his artworks – in ways that show them as more mysterious and enchanting than in everyday life.

The in-depth retrospective exhibition of Magritte’s work on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales features over 100 works, most never seen before in Australia. The exhibition ranges from the artist’s first explorations of the avant-garde and his commercial work in the 1920s, to his groundbreaking contributions to surrealist practice, his provocative works of the 1940s, and renowned paintings of his later years.

Magritte described his rationale for the representation of objects in 1960: ‘The art of painting – which should really be called the art of likeness – allows the description, through painting, of a thought capable of becoming visible.’

Magritte is part of the Sydney International Art Series which brings the world’s most outstanding exhibitions to Australia, to be seen only in Sydney.

Daily until 9 February 2025

René Magritte ‘Golconda (Golconde)’ 1953, oil on canvas, 80 x 100.3 cm, The Menil Collection, Houston,V 414 © Copyright Agency, Sydney 2024, photo: Paul Hester

René Magritte ‘Good faith (La bonne foi)’ 1965, oil on canvas, 41 x 33 cm, private collection © Copyright Agency, Sydney 2024, photo © Ludion Image Bank 8

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TMAGA friends

(floor talks)

Jane Wilcox, President of the Friends of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, shares news of three engaging talks on diverse topics recently enjoyed by the Friends.

Home: Here and Now An intimate exhibition in the TMAG salon gallery, Home: Here and Now, explores the experiences of Chinese people who migrated to Tasmania from the 1880s to the present.

It celebrates the many ways that Chinese descendants live and belong in Tasmania. This fascinating exhibition brings together oral histories, personal

artefacts and honoured objects that tell the story of the life of Chinese descendants in Tasmania.

The Friends of TMAG welcomed Isobel Andrewartha, TMAG’s Senior Curator of Cultural Heritage, and Chinese Community Association of Tasmania’s President, Hingor Chung

as guest speakers to the Central Gallery.

Isobel, as the leader of the cultural heritage team that curated this gem of an exhibition, discussed the ideas and processes involved in developing the exhibition, and Hingor discussed her personal experiences of integration.

Photo: J Combes

Object Conservation TMAG’s Islands to Ice exhibition, a journey to Antarctica, has had a major refresh, and Friends members were able to hear first hand about the conservators’ work in its rejuvenation.

Following morning tea, Heritage Specialist Michelle Berry, Senior Conservator,

and Belinda Bauer,Vertebrate Zoology Collection Manager at TMAG, spoke about their extensive experience in this field and introduced members to the work of object conservators. Members were taken on a tour of the exhibition, with Michelle and Belinda sharing some behind the scenes insights into the restaging of

the exhibition. Members heard about the difficulties of restaging older taxidermied specimens, and how the nine-metre sperm whale skull was prepared then lifted three stories to be positioned on a specially designed platform.

Photo: J Combes

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Venice Biennale n a recent floor talk, Friends members heard about the exciting adventures of Laura Lewis-Jones, TMAG Visitor Services Officer. As part of its professional development program, Creative Australia engaged with state and territory galleries and museums to invite applications from audience engagement staff to be invigilators at the world’s oldest and most highly

regarded exhibition of contemporary art, La Biennale di Venezia.

Pavilion at the Biennale in July and August this year.

Laura, who studied at UTAS and has a Bachelor of Contemporary Art with Honours and a Master of Contemporary Art, was selected as one of only eight participants from 83 applications from around Australia to be an attendant in the Australia

In her talk, Laura gave members insights into Archie Moore’s award-winning installation, Kith and Kin, and related her amazing experiences in the Pavilion and living in Venice.

Photos: J Combes

Photos: J Combes

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Professor Deb Verhoeven is introduced by Andrew Pike

Professor Deb Verhoeven Third Annual

of the National Film Sue Terry with Friends and Sound Archive sign

Rod Wallace Lecture The subject was “archival appetites”.

On Thursday 14 November 2024 at the National Film and Sound Archive self-confessed ‘stirrer’ Professor Deb Verhoeven delivered a wideranging presentation, stirring her audience into some novel historical contemplations as she explored the foundational appetite at the heart of our national cinema: how archives respond to a sense of human yearning to recapture the past, and come to terms with the reality that something is missing or lost.

It would surprise many that the idea of a repository to preserve films as historic records in this country goes back almost to its foundation in 1901 – when the Federation ceremonies were captured on film, and Australia became the first country to be born in front of a movie camera. Professor Verhoeven has located numerous press articles

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from around 1910 onwards which debate the idea, even if they struggle to define the institutional concept of a “national filmery”. It took us a long time to finally get there – the NFSA wasn’t created until 1984 and had to wait until 2008 for its defining legislation.

The lecture moved into discussion not only of what the NFSA does, but also what it doesn’t do and ought to do.

For example, while the NFSA has set out to preserve Australia’s film output, it has not gathered data about the sociological pattern of film exhibition over the decades, even though Australia was the first country to include the cost of a weekly family visit to “the pictures” in calculating the basic wage.

Professor Verhoeven is currently the Canada 150 Research Chair in Gender and Cultural Informatics at the University of Alberta. A former

, Canberra Film and Sound Archive rtyard of the National NFSA Friends in the cou

CEO of the Australian Film Institute and Director of the AFI Research Collection at RMIT, she was Deputy Chair of the NFSA’s first governing Board from 2008 to 2011, and has authored over 200 books and articles. The annual lecture is presented by the Friends of the NFSA and celebrates the memory of pioneering audiovisual archivist Rod Wallace AM and the foundation he laid for the emergence of the NFSA. As with first two Rod Wallace lectures (delivered by Kim Williams AM and Jenny Hocking AM), Professor Verhoeven’s presentation was recorded and will be viewable via the Friends website: https://www.archivefriends. org.au/index.php/events-news/rodwallace-lectures Ray Edmondson President, Friends of the National Film and Sound Archive

Ray Edmondson and Bro nwyn Coupe. All images supplied by Ray Edmond son

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Walter S. Binks

Miss Porter’s House

&

a motivational speaker of the

1930s

In April 2023, the documentary history collection from Miss Porter’s House, a National Trust property in Newcastle, was inscribed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. This collection was honoured for its thorough documentation of the everyday lives of ordinary women living in a regional town throughout most of the twentieth century, capturing aspects of their work, domestic, family, and community lives.

Florence Porter, widowed in the Influenza outbreak of 1919, had minimal income and relied on her daughters’ earnings for most of the 20th century.

The family lived together until Hazel, the last surviving daughter, bequeathed their home and its contents to the National Trust in 1997. The collection includes scrapbooks, albums, notebooks, leaflets, and clippings that reflect their hobbies, interests, and community involvement.

It showcases their prize-winning craft skills, preferences in theatre, cinema, radio, gardening, and more.

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A particularly intriguing part of the collection is a section devoted to Walter S. Binks, a motivational speaker whose work captured the interest of at least one of the Porter women. This part of the collection features an exercise book with Binks’s photo pasted on the cover, containing his poems, leaflets, and memory aids.

Walter S. Binks was a vocational advisor who became a motivational speaker during the 1930s and 1940s. His lectures, often accompanied by lantern slides and sketches, focused on the connection between human form and personality,

achieving wealth, maintaining a healthy diet, and being self-confident.

His messages were particularly resonant during the Depression. Newcastle was experiencing unemployment rates of around 30 percent, and many families were forced into temporary camps.

In 1933, when Binks visited Newcastle, Hazel, aged 19, was taking sporadic work with businesses, generally earning £1 a day. Twenty-two-year-old Ella had been made redundant from her typing job in 1930 but probably took whatever casual work was available.

Newcastle Morning Herald & Miners Advocate, 9 November 1933

Binks emphasised ‘Vocational Science’ as a developing field, promoting happiness as essential for health (“HAPPINESS IS THE GREATEST HEALTH PRODUCER”), confidence (“Whatever Man has done, I CAN DO!”), and goalsetting (“Direct your powers toward one great aim, Discard all mean futility, Then like this rose you’ll earn the fame, And rank of true nobility!”).

The collection also includes 15 charts titled ‘Living the Radiant Life,’ which advocate for overcoming obstacles, fostering a positive mindset, and

‘Living the Radiant Life’, motivational notes by Walter S. Binks

achieving goals through positive thinking and healthy living.

of financial constraint. It’s a habit the women never lost.

It is possible that the women of Miss Porter’s House attended Binks’s lectures at the Lyric Theatre Newcastle in November 1933, where admission was free, though Binks charged for individual assessments.

Other items from the Miss Porter’s House collection, with advice on a range of topics.

Other documents in the collection provide practical advice on various topics, from treating acne to making smelling salts, reflecting the resourcefulness required during times

For more Information on Walter Binks: from Museums Victoria Miss Porter’s House National Trust NSW Pam Marley & Jean Bridges

Doll in church costume.

Photo: Karen Wenke

Presentation of ‘Walla Walla’s Wendish Past” to Walla Walla Public School Students by Dr Tanja Schramm-Trethowan.

Photo: Karen Wenke

Walla Walla’s Wendish Past

Zion Lutheran Church, Walla Walla, New South Wales. Photo: Roslyn Russell

As a small local museum, the Old School House Walla West Museum is dedicated to sharing our significant migration heritage story. Walla Walla, New South Wales and Serbin, Texas, USA are acknowledged as the largest migration areas of Wendish people in the 2009 book, Shores of Hope: Wends go overseas. Wendish people come from the Lusatia region of the German state of Brandenburg. This region has been home to the Slavic Wendish people, known as Sorbs in Europe, for hundreds of years.

Many of the original settlers in Walla Walla, such as the Hennersdorf, Lieschke, Mickan and Wenke families, are of Wendish descent. These families arrived at Port Adelaide in the 1850s and tried to establish the Wendish language and culture in Australia.

For five years they successfully operated a Wendish school at Ebenezer, before travelling overland in 1868 in order to obtain more productive land in New South Wales. It should also be noted that they were tri-lingual, and were able to converse in their native tongues of upper Sorbian, German and English.

Upon establishing the first church in 1872, a congregational school was established, with lessons held in German.

The school became a public school in 1885 due to the unavailability of a suitable German teacher. The

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German language and, by association the Sorbian language, were suppressed by the government during World War I. This led to a loss of language and culture by the Wendish settlers and their German counterparts.

Our community has a deep sense of historical pride linked to our Wendish and German roots, the trek of original settlers from South Australia to Walla Walla, and the building of a new community centred around the Lutheran faith. This heritage is reflected in the town layout, which is a classic example of a German-style Straßendorf (street village), a type of Reihendorf (row village). In Walla’s case, there is an old historic commercial core, to which newer buildings were added over time at each end of Commercial Street.

Walla Walla was originally known as Ebenezer, after the village established

by Wendish settlers in South Australia.

Unfortunately, as another town in New South Wales already had this name, it had to be changed. The name chosen was Walla Walla, after the local sheep station. Zion Lutheran Church, which recently celebrated the centenary of the dedication of the third church on the site, is acknowledged as the largest Lutheran church in NSW. Through our local Educational Outreach Program, we aim to educate school students about our unique local history.

In late 2023 we applied for and were awarded grant funding from Inland Rail.

We named this project Walla Walla’s Wendish Past. The funding enabled us to acquire costume dolls and other

Doll in Festival costume.

Photo: Karen Wenke

artefacts from the village of Burg in the Lusatian region of Germany. Burg is a town where traditional practices and lifestyle are still followed. We were aided in this endeavour by our German colleague, Dr Anca Prodan, of the Brandenburg Institute of Technology.

The costume dolls display traditional handmade attire that was common over a century ago for different activities, including church attendance, fieldwork, and festival participation.

Today, only festival attire remains in use.

The collection also features detailed embroidery samples, traditional block printing samples, welcome ribbons in both German and Sorbian, the official name of the Wendish language. We also have decorated eggs in traditional Wendish designs.

The first of our porcelain dolls is 40 cm in height, with fixed eyes and is dressed for church in traditional attire of a black lace-trimmed skirt over a white lace-trimmed petticoat. She also wears

a black lace-trimmed scarf over a white lace-trimmed mid-length shirt. This is complemented by an ornate black lacetrimmed headdress. Married women were expected to be modest and therefore wore longer sleeves extending to the wrist. By contrast unmarried women would have worn shorter sleeves, as our doll demonstrates.

It is also interesting to note that the Wendish mourning colour is white.

When someone dies, all the mirrors are covered over and windows are left open for the spirit of the deceased to depart.

The second of our porcelain costume dolls is taller at 60 cm and dressed for everyday work in the fields. She has a simple blue scarf covering her hair.

Her floral blouse is practical for working outdoors and the blue skirt with motif is typical of ancient Wendish woodblock textile printing techniques. In fact, a factory that produces this design has been operating since the mid-1600s.

Doll in work costume.

Photo: Karen Wenke

The last of our porcelain costume dolls is also 60 cm, and dressed in a festival costume, with an ornate white headdress with hand-stitched floral embroidery and lace trim. The white lace blouse is traditionally worn with a large embroidered scarf over it, which is then pinned and tucked into the skirt.

The purple skirt is trimmed with a floral silk lace-edged ribbon sewn onto the skirt approximately 15 cm from the hemline. A white lace-trimmed petticoat is worn under the skirt. Undergarments are pantaloons, stockings and blue dress shoes. The skirt is covered by a white lace apron and is tied by a blue ribbon.

The colour of the ribbon denotes the village of the wearer.

As a volunteer museum, we thank our volunteers and friends, as without them we would be unable to operate our programs, exhibitions and events.

Karen Wenke, Education Officer, Old School House Walla West Museum

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Kente cloth, National Museum of Ghana All photo: Roslyn Russell

Courtyard and clocktower, Balme Library, University of Ghana

Museums and Libraries in Accra

Ghana Accra, capital of the west African nation of Ghana, was the venue for the 15th UNESCO Memory of the World training workshop. The workshops, conducted by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO (KNCU) since 2009, are held to assist countries that are not well represented on the UNESCO Memory of the World International and regional registers to prepare nominations that will meet the criteria for inscription.

KNCU and the Ghana Commission for UNESCO collaborated in organising the four-day workshop, which brought together international experts and nominators from west Africa and Uganda to discuss and refine draft nominations. I was privileged to be invited to Ghana to participate in the workshop.

Once the formal workshop program had concluded, we had the opportunity to see more of our host country’s capital city. On our last day in Accra we were taken to see some fascinating museums, libraries and

A.G. Leventis Digital Resource Centre, University of Ghana

Ashanti carvings and beads on display, University of Ghana

sites. Our first visit was to the University of Ghana, where the Balme Library is housed in a magnificent building constructed around a courtyard, with an imposing clocktower. The Library, in addition to books and manuscripts, also houses an impressive digital heritage collection.

The University’s Archaeology Museum displays a range of objects: African and European ceramics; contemporary artworks; wood carvings; and the story of how the distinctive beads that are such a feature of African culture are made and worn.

Our next stop was the National Museum of Ghana where a giant model of Anansi the Spider, a key character in African and Caribbean folklore, is suspended from the ceiling of the foyer. The museum displays range from interpretation of prehistoric Africa to explorations of the cultures of Ashanti, Akan, Ewe and other groupings in Ghana, including their world-famous woven textiles such as Kente and Kete cloth; and intricate wood carving.

Our final destination for the day was a magnificent site in Accra that celebrates the life and achievements

of Kwame Nkrumah, pioneer panAfricanist, prime minister of the Gold Coast (former name of Ghana) from 1952 to 1957, and prime minister and president when Ghana achieved independence from Britain in 1957. He served until 1966 when he was deposed in a coup, and died in Romania in 1972. Nkrumah’s body was brought back to Ghana and interred in a splendid modernist mausoleum flanked by gilded statues.

A museum to his memory is also located on the site, which is known as the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park and Mausoleum.

Akan ceramic heads, Universit y of Ghana

Anansi the Spider looms over the foyer of the National Museum of Ghana, Accra

While our time exploring Accra’s libraries and museums was brief, we all learned a great deal about the history and culture of Ghana.

Some of us came back with tangible reminders, particularly beads and colourful cloth items and artworks, which were on sale at the sites we visited. My only regret is that I didn’t buy more!

Roslyn Russell is Chair of the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Committee, and Editor of Friends Review.

Kwame Nkrumah statue at his mausoleum in Accra.

Ashanti stool with crocodile carving (detail), National Museum of Ghana

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Innovative textile work in Tamworth Regional Gallery exhibition

Cover image credit: Reconstitution of the eruption of Vesuvius.

Image courtesy of Gedeon Projects.

Inherited Borders, a work by textile artist Jeanette Stok, translates to galvanised wire and wire mesh a traditional Norwegian embroidery technique called Hardanger, and references her cultural inheritance from past generations of her family.

It is one of a number of innovative expressions of textile art in the Tamworth Regional Gallery’s current exhibition, 50 to 100: Many Years in the Making, which celebrates 50 years of Tamworth’s textile collection, and over 100 years of the Gallery’s collection, with a focus on women artists.

Jeanette Stok, Inherited Borders, 2017, Galvanised wire and wire mesh. 2800 mm x 1800 mm, Tamworth Regional Gallery Collection. Photo: Roslyn Russell

Call for contributions Do you have a story about a recent Friends activity?

Is the institution you support showing an exciting exhibition, or promoting a new activity?

Friends Review is interested in showcasing as many projects as possible, and spreading the word about how Friends can make a difference in their museum, library or archive community.

Please send your contributions

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Contact list for AFFM members Here is a list of AFFM representatives who are able to assist with problems, give advice and bring issues to the notice of the Executive Committee.

President Yvette Pratt Yvette.Pratt@ag.nsw.gov.au

Treasurer Lyndal Hughson lyndal.hughson@gmail.com

NSW Vice-President Yvette Pratt Yvette.Pratt@ag.nsw.gov.au

TAS Vice-President Jane Wilcox president@friendsoftmag.org.au

WFFM President of Honour Carolyn Forster OAM carolynjforster@bigpond.com

Friends Review Editor Roslyn Russell ros@rrmuseumservices.com.au