The Victoria and Albert Museum is "world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts, and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects." It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. This lecture will tell the story of the V&A and take a look at some highlights from […]
The 1950s in Melbourne began with the newly-elected Menzies Government’s campaign to ban the Communist Party of Australia, feeding into and sustaining growing anti-communist rhetoric in the post-war nation. Fears of communist infiltration coloured the actions of the Australian peace movement, with public commentators and political figures condemning the movement as a communist fifth column […]
The problematic statue - a brief history of debunking and desecrating public monuments. The toppling and vandalizing of prominent statues around the world has been an all-too-frequent news item in recent times. Citing the alleged moral failure or criminal culpability of the toppled subjects, the wrath of outraged crowds has focused on grand sculptural representations […]
Cup Week and the Melbourne Cup have long been embedded in Australian cultural, social and political history. Why Melbourne, why the Cup, and how does it still exert a particular hold? There have always been those who reviled horse racing in general and Cup Week in particular. Most Melburnians and indeed most Australians still welcome […]