2020 Awards of Excellence Recipients
Winner: Projects Under $15,000
Conjola Tours, Kotahi Tourism
Conjola tours offer visitors the opportunity to explore lakeside, bush and beach on a 1.5 hour eco-tour at Lake Conjola Entrance. On this 2.5km walk with experienced local guides, visitors hear surprising stories of natural environment and local history, and see a diverse range of local wildlife (kangaroo sightings highly likely). The route includes stunning lake and coast vistas, with whale watching opportunities during the migration season. Lake Conjola Entrance is a ‘must visit’ location for bird-watchers and photographers, known for a wide range of species including endangered and vulnerable beach-nesters.
Bushfire Update January 2020: Conjola District was hit badly by recent bushfires, and we include some stories of this challenging time on Conjola tours.
Winner: Projects $50,000 – $150,000
Prospect 1838: Synthetic Creative Services
An outside installation telling the stories and history of the Adelaide suburb of Prospect (South Australia) through large scale interpretive panels and sculptures. The wall runs alongside a bike path in a new housing development. Mixed materials – rusted steel, concrete, reclaimed wood and environmental landscaping.
Winner Projects Over $150,000
Songs of Home: Sydney Living Museums
Songs of Home tells the little-known story of music played and enjoyed in NSW during the first 70 years of the colony. It focuses on how people constructed a sense of “home and place” through music and also marks the initial intersection between the musical cultures of the First Nations people and colonists, reflecting on what this means in a contemporary context. Surprising, moving, entertaining – the fascinating world of music in early NSW is revealed here for the first time as a place of melodious complexity.
The exhibition was the culmination of almost a decade of research, musician and scholarly collaborations and exploration of intangible heritage in SLM house museums.
Winner Projects Over $150,000
On The Move, Temporary Exhibition: Sydney Living Museums
ON THE MOVE is a highly interactive intergenerational family exhibition that takes the audience on a journey of exploration around Australia discovering fascinating facts about different modes of transport, inventions and the amazing people behind them. From the supersonic vehicles of the present to pioneering prototypes from the past, and new innovations that will redefine how we travel in the future, ON THE MOVE celebrates the way in which transport captures our imagination.
Created in partnership with Australian illustrator James Gulliver Hancock ON THE MOVE is the sixth in a series of popular family-friendly exhibitions developed by Sydney Living Museums (SLM), demonstrating a commitment to providing interactive educational experiences for visitors of all ages. The exhibition primarily aimed to facilitate fun, cross-generational interaction and education for carers and children, ranging from early learners to mid-primary school age.
Through vivid illustrations and immersive and interactive stations visitors of all ages were encouraged through play based learning to:
*navigate the complexities of a metropolis transport networks
*consider the importance of sustainable transport choices and renewable fuel
*rethink the process of inventing and the significance of trial and error in driving innovation
*discover and explore the evolution of modes of transport and image what they might be like in the future!
The exhibition also continues a long tradition of SLM exhibitions, aiming to deepen visitor connection with Sydney and their surrounds and to prompt new ways of seeing, thinking about and exploring where they live and further afield to other cities or places.
Winner: Creativity In A Crisis
Mission to Mars: Questacon – The National Science and Technology Centre (A Division of the Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources)
Questacon Mission to Mars reinterpreted and physically transformed our hands on science centre into an immersive hands free experience, allowing visitors to see our building, exhibits and performers like never before. The COVID safe product is a new guided experience that takes visitors on a journey from Earth to the red planet. Drawing on the performance and interpretation talent of our visitor-facing staff, the tour explores the science of this fascinating planet and the challenges humanity will need to overcome if we are ever to visit Mars. What are the medical risks of space travel? How will humans survive in Mars’ inhospitable atmosphere? Is there liquid water on Mars? What is below the surface of the planet? Why is Mars so similar to Earth and yet so very different?
From the launch of the rocket to the eventual touch down on the surface of the red planet, visitors are guided through selected Questacon exhibitions and enjoy a range of immersive learning experiences to gain the skills and knowledge needed to be the first humans on Mars. The journey concludes with a spectacular visit to our impressive seven metre Mars globe, suspended in the inner gallery on the ground floor. This experience leaves our visitors with one final question – would you go to Mars?
