Selling Yarns

Australian Indigenous textiles and good business in the 21st century

 

Speakers

Anna Malgorzewicz: Biography

Director, Museum and Gallery of the Northern Territory

Anna Malgorzewicz has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Adelaide. She began her Museum career in 1985 at the Migration Museum in SA, where as a Curator of Social History she was responsible for the development of collections and exhibitions as part of the planning and implementation of the Museum, which opened in 1986.

Malgorzewicz has a special interest in migration and in 1990 she took a position at the Museum of Victoria in Victoria as Curator of Migration and Settlement. In this position she had curatorial responsibility for the development of collections and exhibitions for the planned new Museum of Victoria. During her time at the Museum of Victoria, in 1993 until 1995, Malgorzewicz was also Head of the History Department. She curated a number of exhibitions whilst there including the highly successful ridging Two Worlds: Jews, Italians and Carlton.

From early 1995 to late 1996, Malgorzewicz was appointed Director of the Canberra Heritage Centre (now known as the Canberra Museum and Art Gallery).

In 1997, Malgorzewicz returned to Melbourne to take up the position of Director of the Immigration Museum & Hellenic Antiquities Museum (a campus of Museum Victoria). The Immigration Museum & Hellenic Antiquities Museum opened to the public in November 1998.

During Malgorzewicz's varied career as a Curator and Director she has curated numerous exhibitions on migration and has published widely in this field in various publications, reports and articles.

In 2001, Anna accepted the position of Director of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin where she is still today. The Museum and Art Gallery of the NT is a vibrant and vital institution committed to the acquisition, research, development and conservation of scientific, art and material culture collections. It is internationally renowned as an institution of cultural and scientific excellence and its permanent collections place the region's art, history and culture in an Australian and international context through research, interpretation and collection development. These collections encompass Aboriginal art and material culture, visual arts, craft, Southeast Asian and Oceanic art and material culture, maritime archaeology, Northern Territory history and natural sciences.

A major art event undertaken annually by the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT is the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award. Considered as the premier national Indigenous event on the national art calendar, the Award was initiated by the Museum and Art Gallery of the NT in 1984, and at the time, was the only one of its kind specifically for Indigenous artists.

Anna Malgorzewicz is the convenor for the Australian context session at 10:20 - 11:00 am, Sunday, 13 August 2006.