History Projects
Since 1984 the work of the Living Museum has focussed on involving different communities in a number of projects that research different aspects of culture and heritage in the western region. Some of these projects have been initiated by museum staff others have been initiated to individuals or groups in the community or have resulted from community enquiries.
The Museum’s research and resources cover most topics to do with history, heritage and natural heritage in the western suburbs from pre-European times until the present day. Many of these topics and themes are relevant to state, national and international issues.
The titles of forthcoming pages including current and past Museum’s projects and Annual Reports can be found on the right hand column of this page. These pages are being developed and published as this website expands. The idea is to disseminate more of this material via the internet as funding becomes available.
Some of the Museum’s past projects include web pages designed by artists and work experience students during their residencies and placements at the Living Museum. These web publications will be published in the original formats as designed by the artists, students and others.
The ‘Footscray wharves and environs’ is the first LMW project page published on May 18, 2017. This project has been funded by the Public Records Office of Victoria and the City of Maribyrnong. The web project tells the story of the site and the people of the Footscray wharves precinct (see image above).
Click the links below to see more details of history projects:
History of the Munitions Factories by Les McLean (1 Page and 40 PDF downloads)
Arts Projects
Since 1984 artists from various disciplines including contemporary art, film making, choreography, theatre production, music and creative writing have found the Museum’s archives, its associated communities and its location in Pipemakers Park (since 1989) an extremely rich and unique resource to help them develop new projects and a better understanding of the history and cultural heritage of Melbourne and Australia through getting to know more about the region to the West of Melbourne.
The Living Museum hosts and supports artistic research, exhibitions and events. Through its contemporary art sub-committee the Museum manages an exhibition program and artist-in-residency program.
The Museum also works with various institutions to host and to help facilitate and develop course subjects, student research projects, exhibitions and other events.
Click the links below to find more information about Arts projects:
Student Projects
Since the early 1990s the Museum has worked with various institutions to host and to help facilitate and develop course subjects for students, student research projects, exhibitions and other events. Currently the Museum is eworking in partnership with various tertiary institutions.
Student research and residency program
More information about the student research residency program including projects can be found here.
Student work experience program
Although it no longer has the resources to be able to host tertiary or secondary work experience students, during the 1990s the Museum helped students to produce and publish a small project of their own design based on the Museum’s archives during their placement.
Like all projects hosted by the Museum the results add to the Museum’s archive and resources. Some of these past student projects can be found here.
Click the links below to find more information about the student project:
RMIT media and communications student project – Untold Stories: People, Places, Open Spaces