Helping the WA Museum connect people and stories
The WA Museum's public galleries and special exhibitions reflect the story of our State and country, from the earliest times to the most recent social histories. See how the Foundation for the WA Museum supports the Museum to make a real difference by connecting people and stories.
Expanded Aboriginal Bush Food and Medicine Garden
The Aboriginal Bush Food and Medicine Garden at the Museum of the Goldfields was established in 2022 to preserve and share Aboriginal knowledge. The garden is designed to develop the awareness of how native plants have been an effective source of nutrition and medicine for Western Australia’s Indigenous population. The garden aims to strengthen the community’s understanding of food and biodiversity as well as sustainability, and to highlight the symbiotic relationship with the land and the native flora that our Indigenous population has had for over 60,000 years.
In 2024, over 70 new native plants were planted in the expanded garden, thanks to a major three-year partnership between gold mining company Gold Fields, the Western Australian Museum and the Foundation for the WA Museum.
Featured plants include the Desert Cassia (senna artemisioides), a small woody shrub with silver green leaves and bright yellow flower is a medicine plant endemic to the North Eastern Goldfields, and the Jam Wattle (acacia acuminata). The seeds of this versatile plant can be used for flour, bark is used as a painkiller, and timber is used to make tools. The garden will also include a fire pit, yarning circle and interpretive signage.
Worlds collide in the depths of our oceans
JAMES CAMERON - CHALLENGING THE DEEP is Hollywood director James Cameron's exhibition, and it’s your expedition through the deepest oceans, viewed through the multiple lenses through which Cameron views the world: as an engineer, explorer, innovator, storyteller, and conservationist.
While you may know him as one of Hollywood’s blockbuster names, he was also the first person to descend solo to the deepest known part of earth, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, and helped design and build the vessel that took him there …
WA's first coastal steamship
In the new visitor experience SS Xantho: unlocking hidden stories of our State at the WA Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle, visitors are able to explore the amazing story of Western Australia’s first coastal steamship. New multi-media and interactive platforms explain how one family and the SS Xantho were intricately linked to the social, economic, and cultural development of Western Australia in the late 1800’s.
Visitors learn about the importance of steamships to the development of our State, the experiences of Aboriginal peoples and indentured Asian workers in the North West, and the ground-breaking work undertaken by the WA Museum to recover and conserve the SS Xantho's rare marine steam engine - the gallery’s centrepiece.
The Foundation for the WA Museum provided partial funding for the gallery refurbishment and exhibition through one of the Foundation’s 2022 Impact Circle Grants.
Images by Lowana Biddy, courtesy of WA Museum.
A Minderoo Grant for an "Illuminate" commission
The Foundation's Minderoo Grants fund a broad range of projects for the WA Museum.
From May to September 2023, audiences were able to enjoy a new program in the Illuminate nightly projection series, funded by a Minderoo Grant.
The commission was inspired by the Wild About Babies sculpture trail, developed by artists Gillie and Marc, also on display in the Perth Cultural Centre from May to September.
The Wild About Babies night projections built awareness of endangered species through visually rich and large-scale projections of vulnerable species in their natural habitat. The projections could be enjoyed nightly for free commencing at dusk.
Helping to bring "Dinosaurs of Patagonia" to Perth
In 2022, the Foundation helped bring the Dinosaurs of Patagonia exhibition to Perth with the support of the International Exhibition Fund donors.
In a world-first, this exhibition brought together
full-scale casts of dinosaurs from an ancient time in
Patagonia, alongside incredible fossils and new finds. The striking exhibition featured 13 dinosaur species, 16 skeleton casts, incredible fossils, 3D animations and video, and interactive fun for all the family.
Diving into the chronicles of this ancient past, museum visitors travelled through the deserts of Patagonia, revealed mysteries of nature and were able to better understand their place as a human being in the complex balance of our natural history.
The project would have not been possible without the generous financial gift of the International Exhibition Fund donors, Kate Budiselik, The McClements Foundation, Mineral Resources and Nev Power and Family.
