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| December |
The exhibition Traversing Antarctica: the Australian Experience is now showing at TMAG (the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery). It marks the 100th anniversary of the 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, led by Douglas Mawson. The exhibition is a journey of discovery through the stories, science and wonder of Antarctica's past, present and future. The exhibition runs until early 2014, touring Australia and ending in Adelaide. It is mounted by National Archives of Australia with support from the Australian Antarctic Division, the South Australian Museum and the Western Australian Museum. Much of the exhibition is on top of cabinets with unmarked drawers. These contain a wealth of documents relating to AAE, BANZARE and ANARE - a number of which are stamped "Top Secret" or similar. Investigating the contents of these drawers is highly recommended. |
2012 |
| January 3 |
The Mawson 2012 Centenary Expedition departs from Hobart. This is a SA Museum supported Antarctic voyage to celebrate the centenary of Douglas Mawson’s ground-breaking Aurora Expedition (1911-14). This is truly a once in a lifetime event.The 18 night voyage departs from Hobart on 3 January 2012, and museum staff accompanying the vessel will include the SAM Director, geologist Suzanne Miller. The intention is to make a landing at Mawson’s Huts as near to the exact centenary date of the original landing in early January 1912, as well as visiting several of the sub-Antarctic islands, before returning to Bluff (Invercargill), New Zealand. The voyage will be aboard the Orion, the most modern, environmentally friendly and comfortable vessel (including retractable stabilisers for those great Southern Ocean waves!) currently plying Antarctic waters. Click here to download a brochure. |
Mooted but not yet confirmed |
| A talk by Valerie Sitters who is based
at the State Library of SA and has been researching the life of Wilkins. |
| A short talk by Jim Jago on Mawson's first visit to the Flinders Ranges. |
Recent Events
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| On 18 October 2011 the author of "In Bed with Mawson", Craig Cormick gave a talk on his book. The presentation was quite different to usual in that Craig read out a series of excerpts from his book. Not one power point slide was seen. The book is based on a series of imaginary conversations with Douglas Mawson and was conceived while Craig was sailing south in early 2008 on the Aurora Australis, the ship used to resupply Australia’s Antarctic bases. Craig undertook the voyage as part of a 2008 Antarctic Arts Fellowship. Craig pointed out that when he started out on the voyage he had planned to produce a series of short articles, but as the voyage went on and he read more and more on Mawson the idea of a book evolved. Some of the excerpts were highly imaginative with visions of Antarctic shopping malls, car parks, tourist complexes and souvenir shops. There were other weird concepts such as that only tourist operators rather than scientists should be allowed in Antarctica plus the idea that the historic huts becoming part of a theme park. Given the trend of style becoming increasingly more important than substance, perhaps some of these apparently wild thoughts are not so wild after all. |
| On 19 June, a cold (almost) mid-winters evening, some 30 people attended The Friends of Mawson AAE Centenary celebration and AGM event. Thanks to the generosity of the South Australian Museum staff and administration we were fortunate to be able to hold the business part of the evening in the main foyer. Our members and guests enjoyed wine and nibbles during the short AGM proceedings followed by a very special night tour of The Museum. Our knowledgeable and entertaining guides were Jim Jago, Mark Pharaoh and Simon Langsford. Our sincere thanks go to them for their preparation and participation. |
| On 5 May The Friends of Mawson, in conjunction with the Mawson Center at Mawson Lakes, presented a shortened version of the re-creation of Sir Douglas's lecture account of his Australian Antarctic Expedition which was originally given during his speaking tour of Australia, Britain and the US.
This was only the third time in recent years when the public was able to see this presentation of replica glass slides shot by Hurley and other expedition members. Nancy Flannery spoke of the lecture circuit from which the slides are derived. Then the lights were dimmed and Ian Flannery began the slide show narration. There were a couple of technical issues in the presentation and it went to prove that even with the modern facilities of today not everything will go right on the night. An audience of approximately 60 appreciated the efforts of all involved and at the end of the presentation were invited to share in a light snack prepared by Annie Payne of the Mawson Centre and to also view a magic lantern slide projector loaned to FOM by the South Australian Museum. |
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