Cultural Attractions of Australia promotes curated experiences across the country, including a selection of unmissable options in Melbourne, writes Neil Porten
A lust for gold drove thousands to Victoria’s Ballarat from around the world in the 1850s.
Today, 500,000 visitors a year immerse themselves in gold-rush era history recreated at Sovereign Hill. Panning for gold is still popular there. But a behind-the-scenes tour is a guarantee of unearthing priceless nuggets of history.
Cultural Attractions of Australia promotes curated experiences across the country, including Sovereign Hill, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a trio that demonstrate just how broadly culture can be defined. Tours led by experts bring the cultural history up close, adding depth to the breadth.
It’s possible to draw a golden thread through the stories each organisation has to tell, from gold mining to the fortunes made and then spent on fostering the arts, to the building of a cathedral where Olympic glory was won by athletes draped in green and gold.
Rows of quilted dragon scales from the costume of Loong, the oldest processional dragon in Australia, at Sovereign Hill. Photo / Neil Porten
First, guts before glory. Gold was discovered in Victoria in the 1850s. The Centre for Gold Rush Collections at Sovereign Hill has 150,000 objects chronicling the lives of the fortune hunters.
The smell of history is the dry mustiness of a Colonial-era chaise lounge. With no glass between viewer and exhibit, the backstage treasures tour excites the senses.
Shelves and drawers feature brass weights and scales, paper mining licences, an emu brooch fashioned from a single gold nugget. Tammy Gilson’s emu feather skirt was made in 2016 for the first corroboree in Ballarat in 150 years.
All Nations, a painting by esteemed artist Marlene Gilson, depicts the many peoples present on the Ballarat goldfields. While narratives of immigration often focus on conflict and competition, the artwork shows that co-operation, particularly between First Nations people and Chinese, was much more common.
One in five people on the Victorian goldfields were Chinese. Artefacts from their history range from wooden temple banners carved with hanzi characters, to intricately decorated headdresses with fine metalwork and silk tassels. Fierce-faced Guan Gong warrior statues guard a high shelf. In a drawer is a silk tunic, the blues and pinks faded, studded with mother-of-pearl buttons and dragon-scale stitching.
A Guan Gong warrior statue at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat, Victoria. Photo / Neil Porten
Pride of place belongs to Loong, the oldest processional dragon in Australia. The age-dulled colours are no distraction from its impressive silver horns, golden cheeks and flaming red nostrils. In another drawer lie rows of quilted dragon scales from the rest of the costume. First used in 1898, the dragon still featured in performances into the 1960s.
Fascination with historical clothing never goes out of fashion. Sovereign Hill has over 3500 fashion objects. Good clothing was a precious commodity on goldfields, so it needed to be long-lasting and adaptable.
Generous seams and hems allowed for the ins and outs of circumstance - notably pregnancy - and the ups and downs of fashion. Beautiful items belonging to Eliza Coates - a black velvet jacket, and a fur-trimmed golden silk dress are highlights of the collection.
Eliza Coates' fur-trimmed golden silk dress. Photo / Supplied
Alfred Felton bequeathed a gold-rush era fortune to the National Gallery of Victoria in 1904. The vast sum was used to gather a wonderful collection that exclusive tours get to see before the gallery opens.
Curator Michael Gentle is the perfect guide for Wurrdha Marra, the gallery’s space dedicated to First Nations art from around the continent. Work by the recently deceased Destiny Deacon, features dolls as recurring props. There is a “funny/sad tension”, Gentle says, in her images referencing the Stolen Generations of First Nations children alienated from their culture.
A real treat is viewing Bark Salon, a floor-to-ceiling exhibit of 182 works curated by Gentle, just before it opens. Seeing mundane tools required to install the works - a hydraulic lift, spirit levels, cordless drills - is a peek behind the curtain with the wizard curator himself.
Preparations for the exhibition Bark Salon from a behind the scenes tour at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Photo / Neil Porten
Across Federation Square at National Gallery of Victoria International, head of conservation Michael Varcoe-Cocks shows us around the largest conservation department in the Southern Hemisphere. First stop is the paper studio, where the air smells of old books.
In front of a wall of traditional Japanese brushes, senior conservator Ruth Shervington describes a day at the office.
A 1931 self-portrait by German photographer Ilse Bing has a puncture; it needs repairing and retouching. Rembrandt prints - Rembrandts! - are being examined for watermarks and other evidence of provenance. The work is complex, requires a knowledge of materials and chemistry, and any alterations must be reversible.
Conservator Carl Villis restores a large painting, Romantic Landscape with Mercury and Argus by Salvator Rosa. Photo / Supplied
In the main conservation workspace, conservators are assessing new acquisitions: a stone necklace, a blue jug, porcelain figurines. Conservator Carl Villis has the paints and brushes out before a large canvas, Romantic Landscape with Mercury and Argus by Salvator Rosa. At this point in the 10-month restoration process a patch of a lake surface is being retouched in blue-grey.
“It’s like replacing lost pixels,” Villis says, an exacting task he does for only a couple of hours a day.
It’s patient work preserving cultural history in the quiet spaces behind the scenes at the gallery.
The ‘G’ doesn’t really do quiet. There’s no game on but the Melbourne Cricket Ground is still buzzing with ground staff, corporate lunches, and stadium tours. We get a double-header: a premium-access guided tour and an up-close experience with objects from the Australian Sports Museum.
Melbourne Cricket Club member Barrie Jacket, resplendent in his striped jacket, has been guiding for 23 years. First stop is a painting of the first international cricket game played on the ground on January 1, 1862.
As he leads us onto the playing surface, the sheer size of the arena is remarkable. During World War II, the vast circle was a United States military camp; on Grand Final day, or at the Boxing Day test, it’s a battleground ringed by 100,000 roaring fans.
Beneath the stand, the changing rooms are cavernous and utilitarian. Honours boards for the home team record a Shane Warne hat-trick in 1994 and nine test centuries for the peerless Don Bradman.
The Premium Access Tour at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Photo / Supplied
In contrast, the members’ area upstairs is plush carpets, wood panelling, and portraits of MCC presidents in gilded frames.
Impressive bronze doors in the Anniversary Gallery depict the sporting history of this most famous sports ground, including one of Betty Cuthbert, a true Australian golden girl who won three sprinting gold medals at the 1956 Olympics, aged just 18.
Propped against some shelving in the bowels of the MCG are the 2m-tall Olympic rings from those Games.
The paint has faded and they are in pieces. A pommel horse made of wood and leather rests under plastic. Shelves hold oars, a wooden medal podium, a hurdle, a white-line marker - fascinating yet unremarkable Olympic memorabilia from 68 summers ago.
Olympic rings from the 1956 Olympics at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Photo / Supplied
More remarkable, is curator Clare’s favourite item in the Australian Sports Museum’s collection: an appropriately gold-coloured bike, ridden to victory by Aussies Anthony Marchant and Ian Browne in the 2000m tandem cycling event at the 1956 Olympics.
The museum accepts all sorts of memorabilia into its collection of some 70,000 objects, with a preference for items used in events - uniforms, equipment, footwear - over medals and trophies. They are catalogued and stored on-site.
New items we saw included mascots from the 2024 Paris Olympics, a State of Origin football, and a singlet worn by 13-year-old Ian Johnston, Australia’s youngest Olympian, coxswain in the men’s coxed pair event at the 1960 Olympics.
Johnston didn’t win gold - only a lucky few who seek it do - but its hold on the collective imagination endures, and the stories of its allure are there to be discovered along with other cultural treasures.
Air NZ, Qantas, and Jetstar all fly non-stop from Auckland to Melbourne in about four hours.
DETAILS
Cultural Attractions of Australia has 19 icons to visit and experience across the country. You can search by destination at culturalattractionsofaustralia.com
