The Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney is scheduled to open 18 November, just days ahead of another museum that has received considerable media attention across the year, the WA Museum (opening 21 November).
Further, the Australian Museum in Sydney, the National Museum of Australia and the Australian War Memorial, both in Canberra, are also undergoing major multi-million dollar facelifts.
While this focus arguably speaks of a broader rethinking at play with regard to the relevance of the museum in the 21st century, in the case of The Chau Chak Wing Museum it also offers a conversation about the hand-in-glove relationships that benefactors play – and will increasingly play – in our cultural institutions.
ArtsHub met with David Ellis, Director Museums and Cultural Engagement for the new Museum and University.
Ellis said: ‘This has been fifteen years in the planning, and solving a lot of issues that I saw when I arrived seventeen years ago. But wishful thinking of a director is one thing, and bringing it into existence is another.’
The Chau Chak Wing Museum consolidates the former Nicholson Collection, the Macleay Museum and the University Art Collection onto one site, allowing art, science, history and culture to intersect.
‘I cut my teeth at Tasmanian Museum and Gallery (TMAG) at a time subject areas were still siloed and the zone wasn’t breeched, but I could see the natural linkages between objects,’ Ellis told ArtsHub.
‘It is no longer the primary curatorial voice anymore; it is community voice and adding knowledge that goes beyond mere aesthetic,’ he added.
It was the $15 million donation by businessman Dr Chau Chak Wing – who has a passion for bilateral cultural exchange – that proved to be the catalyst to get this project over the line.
‘In 2015 we got all our donations in that one year. It is typical of fundraising. We have a lead donor that gives the confidence that this is a green light project, and Dr Chau Chak Wing gave us the confidence.
Penelope Seidler ($750,000), the Nelson Meers Foundation ($1 million), the Ian Potter Foundation and others followed with their support for the new museum.
David Ellis, Director of the new Chau Chak Wing Museum, opening at University of Sydney this November. Photo ArtsHub.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Sitting opposite the iconic sandstone Quadrangle of Sydney University and bookended with the brutalist architecture of the Fisher Library, they are three gongs of history, progression and learning.
‘This is very much a 21st century museum using the latest technologies but also highlighting artefact object-based learning. That is that lovely point of difference to a state museum – a university museum is about the interaction of students,’ Ellis said.
The museum sits on a Gadagal women’s gathering site. ‘We are interpreting that; there will be an engraving in the forecourt of wallabies and we have been working with elders on interpreting the site and its layered history,’ Ellis explained.
Designed by architects Johnson Pilton Walker, the museum is spread across five levels and occupies some 8,000 sq meters. It is a building that has incredible lightness and a sense of calm reflection. Through it, the university has tripled the area available to display its diverse collections.
The design encompasses some nine separate galleries including a large temporary exhibition space, pop-out display spaces, a conservation lab, workshop areas, bespoke object-based learning suites, a 130-seat multi-purpose theatre and even a quarantine receiving site to allow international and interstate loans to be received onsite.
It has been designed with roof top solar to off-set the high energy consumption that comes with the temperature control required of a museum. And, completing the museum is the mandatory contemporary café offering overlooking Victoria Park.
‘It was a challenge dealing with such diverse material, especially with some super sensitive to light. It was a real creative partnership with the Architects,’ said Ellis. ‘They really listened.’
When it opens next month, it will be home to some 450,000 objects and will provide a new benchmark for cross-disciplinary teaching and learning through exhibitions and museum collections.
The Museum has taken 2.5 years to complete. Ellis said that while COVID-19 had ‘slowed things a little in the fit out’ the building was fairly completed ahead of March restrictions.
‘At one time in February we had 130 on site – that quickly went down when it should have gone up, but the impact has been minimal,’ said Ellis.
It is the first time that staff, across the collections, has been in one location. ‘We had to bring the curators on. Curators tend to be specialised in their field, so they had to have the faith we weren’t dumbing down, but that we were just showing different perspectives and ways of viewing,’ explained Ellis.
As a flagship of the university’s vision and an entry point to the greater public, Ellis said: ‘We are a central service for the University – part of the external relations portfolio. We do not fall under a faculty; rather we work across all faculties … to look at the big issues of the day and to look at something holistically. That is what we are about.’
Ellis added that he sees the philosophy of the museum as a meeting point.
‘Natural history meeting the sciences, meeting the visual arts, anthropology, ethnography and archaeology, but under the broad themes of love, sex, death and land, and measuring deep time from meteorites to the current day,’ explained Ellis. ‘Often the human stories behind who found it, who made it, how it came here and what it was used for is fascinating stuff.’
‘We live our lives in multi disciplinary ways now, and very few of us are siloed in our thoughts.’ added Ellis.
A TRULY LIVING MUSEUM FOR 21ST UNDERSTANDING
The role of education is the foundation to this new museum, and that will be fleshed out across 18 new exhibitions on opening.
‘It is all about object handling, so kids can touch the ancient world. We do kindergarten right through to year 12 students with curricula based classes,’ Ellis told ArtsHub. Often it is their first university experience, and one that fuels a curiosity and desire for knowledge.
In the past, around 9,000 school kids came through the University collections. The projection for a post-COVID engagement is 15,000. And, as visitors wander through the museum they can see living museum experience through glass doors into these bespoke learning spaces, seamlessly connecting history and future.
‘These collections are for future generations as much as the current one, and different subjects are taught in different ways over time,’ he added.
Every room will have a QR code, and didactic information will be available in different languages, with all First Nations object presented in language.
OPENING EXHIBITIONS
In the 420 sq meter temporary exhibition space will be a major survey of artworks by the Yolŋu peoples of north-east Arnhem Land, Gululu dhuwala djalkiri: welcome to the Yolŋu foundations. At the request of elders, it is presented with the work displayed flat and clustered into clan groups and moieties. It represents three generations of the Milingimbi, Ramingining and Yirrkala communities.
‘The use of Masonite [for the display plinths] was chosen as it was the material their parents and grandparents worked on,’ added Ellis.
Always a key driver of visitors, the new Mummy Room will take a look at Ancient Egyptians believed in life after death – and our Western fascination with it. This permanent display presents the coffins and mummies of four people who lived in Egypt between 1000 BC to AD 100, with the latest CT imaging providing new insights into these objects.
Opposite it is a gallery presenting Roman Spectres, an exhibition of works from the Nicholson collection – the largest antiquities collection in the southern hemisphere.
Launching the contemporary galleries is a commission by Indigenous artist Daniel Boyd, who will reflect upon the origins of the museum as a product of the Enlightenment, using objects from the collection and his own response to them through new work. This idea of multiple viewpoints is a key statement of the museum’s future.
‘He is putting his lens – his perspective – on western civilisation. It will surprise us and probably confront us, but that is what good contemporary art does,’ said Ellis.
He continued: ‘On each level are custom display cases that integrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island stories into the whole museum, not just a separate gallery. We call this series of displays Ambassadors, and we have been working with elders and artists around Australia to develop them. It is a way of saying welcome to my country; these are my artefacts.’
On another level, we find an intimate gallery for photography drawing on the collection of over 80,000 pieces. The inaugural exhibition looking at the commercial opportunities of photography in 19th century New South Wales, while another vast hall presents a luscious salon hang of paintings that explore the Coastline. It draws on the University Art Collection and JW Power Bequest.
There are also exhibitions looking at land use and land rights, the natural world and how species were collected in the 19th century, and the symbolism of imagery in Chinese everyday and ceremonial material, speaking to the university’s 100-years history of teaching China Studies.
FIVE YEARS ON …
Ellis’ vision was simple: ‘It will keep on evolving.’
‘I have said we have done two things here: we have building, a new museum which is a shell and one we have tried to future proof. And then, in this first iteration, we have populated it with objects as we seen them now, and that is going to change over time. I’d hate to see it looking the same.’
The Chau Chak Wing Museum will be open 7 days a week and admission is free.
