Cultural Studies

Today while everyone else in the group decided to attend one of the semi-final rounds of the Australian Open, I went and had myself a visit to Melbourne's Immigration Museum. Bill Bryson in his book A Sunburned Country seemed to be quite taken with this museum, so I decided to give it a shot. Plus, with a free admission student concession, you can't pass it up.

It turned out to be pretty interesting, luckily. Although called the Immigration Museum, it really is more a museum of the social history of Australia. There was a photo-montage timeline describing immigration and immigration policy (including the "White Australia" policy - oh, rampant rascism!). There were stories of ordinary people living in Australia today who had immigrated into the country, complete with "artifacts." Imagine your 11th grade English notebook in a glass case alongside your basketball trophy and a short history of how you came to live in Australia from Sudan. Seriously. Each separate gallery-room had a surround sound system that piped in appropriate noises - ocean waves and the creaking of the ship in the room dedicated to illustrating travel conditions on ocean liners to Australia, for example.

What struck me most about the museum was its interactiveness. Visitors are encouraged to get involved. There was a table called "Share Your Story" with a fill-in form for people to write about their immigration stories or those of their ancestors (there were several forms on display and filled out already). There were craft tables where you could color and decorate an elephant drawing and post it on a board with others (I realized later this was to accompany the special Bollywood exhibit on another floor). It was like a Please-Touch Museum about serious history stuff. Totally cool.

The main attraction was an "ocean liner" you could walk through and see real life conditions for long term ocean travel. On the exterior of the exhibit each porthole held smaller diarama-type displays, telling the story of stowaway "immigrants" like the fully-clothed rats and cockroaches (who immigrated for "food and shelter"). It's like "let's learn but in a fun, almost fake way."

This quite possibly was my favorite bit - a replica retro living room, where visitors could sit on the green vinyl couch and watch a "family trip" slide show projected on the wall and narrated by "Dad" about the trip across the ocean. I freaking love this country.