Exhibition
Note: the exhibition will close for relocation in late January 2009, and will re-open as part of the galleries of Australian democracy in May 2009.
The exhibition showcases more than a century of political leadership through multimedia and interactive technologies. You can get a glimpse of what it takes to lead Australia through a portrait, a short biography and a display of objects and documents for each prime minister.
A feature is Sir Edmund Barton’s dispatch box, used during his term as the first Prime Minister of Australia (1901–03). Although Australian prime ministers no longer ‘do their boxes’, he followed the British tradition of taking home a day’s worth of working papers in a locked box.
There are also a number of caricatures of prime ministers. Painters, sculptors, cartoonists, potters and manufacturers strive to capture their personalities for different reasons—for posterity, for commercial gain, and even, in true Australian style, for political satire.
You can also view ten short films produced by Film Australia, which feature objects from the exhibition and their significance in the prime ministers’ lives.
