Оңтүстік Австралия мұражайы тарихы

Natural history museum in Adelaide, South Australia

The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultural precinct of the Adelaide Parklands. Plans are under way to move much of its Australian Aboriginal cultural collection (the largest in the world), into a new National Gallery for Aboriginal Art and Cultures.

There had been earlier attempts at setting up mechanics' institutes in the colony, but they struggled to find buildings which could hold their library collections and provide spaces for lectures and entertainments. In 1856, the colonial government promised support for all institutes, in the form of provision the first government funded purpose built cultural institution building. The South Australian Institute, incorporating a public library and a museum, was established in 1861 in the rented premises of the Library and Mechanics' Institute in King William Street while awaiting construction of the Institute building on the corner of North Terrace and Kintore Avenue. In June 1856 the South Australian Legislative Council passed Act No. 16 of 1855–6, the South Australian Institute Act (An Act to establish and incorporate an Institution to be called the South Australian Institute), which incorporated the South Australian Institute under the control of a Board of Governors, to whose ownership all materials belonging to the old Library and Mechanics' Institute was immediately transferred. The Act provided for a library and a museum as part of the new organisation. Frederick George Waterhouse offered his services as curator of the South Australian Institute Museum in June 1859 in an honorary capacity. When the Institute building was completed, the Board appointed him as the first curator, a position he held until his retirement in February 1882. He was succeeded by Wilhelm Haacke, who in January 1883 recommended the South Australian Institute Museum be renamed the South Australian Museum (which did not happen then), and the position of Curator be changed to Director. Haacke was appointed the first Director,

The Museum Act (1939) gave the South Australian Museum autonomy from the Art Gallery and Library, and the South Australian Institute Museum was officially renamed the South Australian Museum. This legislation was superseded by the South Australian Museum Act (1976). At some point between 1996 and 2002, the Museum became part of Arts SA. In 1997, championed by state Arts Minister Diana Laidlaw, the SA Museum was funded to develop its ground floor Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery.

The following decade, Mike Rann, Premier and Arts Minister from 2002 to 2011, funded the redevelopment of the Pacific Cultures Gallery and the development of the South Australian Biodiversity Gallery. In October 2005, a piece of public art incorporating water, 14 Pieces, situated on the forecourt of the museum, was officially unveiled by the Premier. Created by artists Angela and Hossein Valamanesh and commissioned by the City of Adelaide, it replaced the Lavington Bonython fountain that had occupied the site from 1965. Its form is based on the vertebrae of an extinct marine reptile, the ichthyosaur. In 2011 Mr Rann appointed former Adelaide Lord Mayor and Education Minister Jane Lomax Smith AM as chair of the Museum Board. In November 2020 Mr Kim Cheater was appointed as Chair of the Museum Board. On 14 April 2024, volunteers, staff and supporters of the museum demonstrated at the Parliament of South Australia in protest over planned restructuring by the museum's management that was first proposed in February and entailed the abolition of 27 positions in its research and collections department and their replacement by 22 lower paid roles. The Public Service Association, which represents workers of the museum, filed a case at the South Australian Employment Court demanding further details from the management, adding that the museum had been underfunded for years and warning that the situation of staff who were already facing unmanageable workloads would only worsen under the suggested reforms.

Brian Oldman was appointed director of the museum in December 2013. In March 2023, David Gaimster was appointed director, with the role being termed CEO as of May 2024.

as of 2019 the South Australian government was committed to splitting the museum, retaining a natural history museum on its existing site and creating a new gallery for Aboriginal art and culture on the site of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital, now known as Lot Fourteen. In early 2019 a consultation process was begun, involving the state government, the Museum, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the State Library, Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, and South Australia's Aboriginal communities, in particular the Kaurna. An update on the Lot Fourteen gallery was announced by Premier Steven Marshall in February 2020, with a scheduled completion date of 2023. However, the plans have been revisited since the change of state government in 2023, and a decision on the Tarrkarri Aboriginal centre has been postponed until 2024, as the state government under Peter Malinauskas searches for philanthropic funding. After an initial cost estimate of $200m, a government appointed panel led by Ken Wyatt and including Bob Carr and Australian Reserve Bank board member Carolyn Hewson, recommended in April 2023 that between $400 million to $600 million should be spent on the project in order to make Tarrkarri an internationally significant centre.

The museum contains the most significant collection of Australian Aboriginal cultural artefacts in the world, This collection, along with several others in the museum, is being digitised, with many images and a great deal of data about each item now available for online browsing. In 2016, a private benefactor, Margaret Davy AM, provided funding for a new position for an Indigenous curator for five years, which she requested be named in honour of her late husband, William Geary. This position is known as The William and Margaret Geary Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Material Culture, with the first appointee being Glenn Iseger Pilkington, a Wadjarri, Nhanda and Nyoongar man from Western Australia with a background in art curating. This was the first time in the history of the museum that a lead curatorial role had been designated for an Indigenous person, and it is hoped that the collection will be developed in a way informed by Indigenous voices and worldview, and also help to make it, in the words of Iseger Pilkington, "more relevant and accessible to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities". The museum holds the biggest collection of carvings by Arrernte artist and anthropological interpreter Erlikilyika, also known as Jim Kite, who lived at the tiny and remote European settlement at Charlotte Waters telegraph station. It also holds a bound sketchbook of 24 pencil drawings of native trees, created during the Spencer and Gillen expedition and bought by Herbert Basedow before being acquired by the Museum, as well as photographs of "Jimmy Kite" and other related materials.

Waterhouse Art Prize exhibitions. The annual Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, the richest prize for natural science art in Australia and named after the museum's first curator, has been awarded in most years since 2003. Exhibitions of the work submitted for the prizes are held at the Museum. Traversing Antarctica: the Australian Experience (December 2013 – March 2014). Rare artefacts and displays highlighting the scientific, historical, and cultural legacy of Australia's interactions with Antarctica. Shimmer (October–November 2015). A collaborative exhibition with between JamFactory, the South Australian Museum and Tarnanthi, a national event held annually by the Art Gallery of South Australia to showcase Indigenous art and culture. Ngurra: Home in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands (October 2017 – January 2018) Ngurra is a word with complex connotations, meaning home, country, camp, birthplace and belonging. Showed the creativity and ingenuity of the Ngaanyatjarra people of Western Australia in all aspects of their life and art. Curated by Glenn Iseger Pilkington. "Yurtu Ardla" (March–June 2019). Yurtu Ardla means wood in the Nukunu and Adnyamathanha languages. The exhibition, curated by Jared Thomas, is a continuation of the Ku Arts workshop series in 2015, which consisted of carving camps by Nukunu (of the Southern Flinders Ranges) and Adnyamathanha (of the Northern Flinders and Gammon Ranges) and which revitalised the Nukunu carving practices. Before this exhibition, there were fewer than 20 known Nukunu objects held by the Museum, mostly made by Nukunu man Paddy Thompson and acquired by anthropologist Norman Tindale in the 1920s.