Collecting the West looks at what's been collected from Western Australia. What do these collections tell us about who we were, who we are and who we can be?
This collection contains project data and reports relating to the Western Australian holdings of a wide range of cultural heritage institutions in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America, and Australia.
Funded by the Australian Research Council (LP160100078), Collecting the West looks at what's been collected from Western Australia. What do these collections tell us about who we were, who we are and who we can be?
Collecting the West is a unique collaboration between The University of Western Australia & Deakin University in partnership with Western Australia's key collecting institutions - the Art Gallery of Western Australia, the State Library of Western Australia & the Western Australian Museum - as well as the British Museum, where many of the state's collections are held. Collecting the West is funded by the Australian Research Council
We're a multi-disciplinary team of researchers with backgrounds across the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities. Our specialty areas include archaeology, art history, biodiversity, ethnography, history, maritime and museum studies.
In the last 400 years, objects from Western Australia have circulated through global, national and local collecting networks...
Some of the first objects through which Europeans imagined Australia came from Western Australia. Shells collected by William Dampier in 1699 went to the UK's Ashmolean Museum and The British Museum. The inscribed plate left by Dirk Hartog on a small island off the westernmost part of Australia in 1616 was found by De Vlamingh in 1697 and taken to Batavia (Jakarta). It is now held in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
“What images of Australia did these fragments from WA present to the world? How did these growing collections eventually inform Western Australian identity, shape its written history, collective memory and sense of place?
— Professor Alistair Paterson
What new understanding of Western Australia emerges from a critical study of collecting? We look for answers in public and private collections held across the state and around the world. Our research is shared at symposiums, in books and academic publications and through public exhibitions, displays and events.
This community collection contains data gathered and reports produced by the Collecting the West project between 2016 and 2023, covering the holdings of Western Australian objects and specimens in cultural heritage collections across Europe, the United Kingdom, North America, and Australia.