Cultural Treasures Festival 2012
Discover Our Cultural Treasures
July 28 - 29, 2012, 10am to 4pm daily
The biennial University of Melbourne Cultural Treasures Festival is a free program of exhibitions, thematic walks, talks and seminars, demonstrations and displays, and guided tours which showcases the University's rich array of museums and collections. Included amongst the many walks through the historic University campus will be programs focusing on botanical, medical, musical and scientific collections, architecture, and ‘Cultural Rubble’, a guided tour of some of the University’s outdoor sculpture. In addition staff and researchers in the cultural area will be running seminars and presentations.
The Cultural Treasures Festival is a free two-day event and will take place over the weekend of 28 and 29 July, 2012. On the same weekend there are two other major events being held on campus: the 39th ANZAAB Australian Antiquarian Book Fair which will be held in the University's splendid Wilson Hall, and the Melbourne Open House program which involves numerous buildings of architectural interest on campus, as well as some of the University colleges.
For any queries regarding the Cultural Treasures Festival, please email cultural-collections@unimelb.edu.au or call (03) 8344 0216
This website will be updated as new programs are launched.
Feature Events and Collections
Mad Max and the Renaissance
A display of prints by Albrecht Dürer and his German contemporaries created during the life and reign of Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519). An illustrated talk will compare Maximilian’s prints to Australian cult movie Mad Max, followed by a triumphal procession to the South Car Park which appeared in the film.
Life under a shadow: John Harry Grainger architect and civil engineer
The Grainger Museum’s temporary exhibition for 2012 investigates the many achievements of John Harry Grainger, the gifted architect and engineer whose life was largely overshadowed by that of his son, composer and concert pianist, Percy Aldridge Grainger. Throughout a relatively short career, English-born John Grainger worked in every state in Australia as well as New Zealand and Colombo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Initially trained as an engineer specialising in bridge building and railway construction, one of his early major achievements was the design for Melbourne’s iconic Princes Bridge over the Yarra River, completed when he was 25. The French Renaissance Revival style public library and municipal offices in Auckland, as well as the Fremantle Town Hall in Perth, are fine examples of Grainger’s public building commissions.
Special Collections Feature Exhibition
To coincide with the Cultural Treasures Festival, the University Library’s Special Collections will curate an exhibition which re-visits the renowned Printing and the Mind of Man exhibition, which was held in London in 1963. The exhibition will showcase a selection of items from the 1963 exhibition from Special Collections and feature some items which perhaps should have been included in that exhibition. The exhibition will complement the 2012 ANZAAB Australian Antiquarian Book Fair which is being held in the University of Melbourne’s splendid Wilson Hall. The exhibition will run from June to August 2012.
The original 1963 exhibition was presented alongside the eleventh International Printing Machinery and Allied Trades Exhibition, and aimed to show the printing industry its own historical evolution while reminding the general public what western civilisation owes to print. The exhibition’s purpose was to display the technical progress of printing as a craft, the finest achievements of printing as an art, and the impact of printing on the mind of Western man since its invention. The invention of printing with moveable type was crucial to the development of western civilisation, and the importance of Johann Gutenberg’s invention cannot be underestimated. The spread of printing throughout Europe was rapid and by the end of the 15th century all the major states had at least one important publishing centre. Fittingly, the University of Melbourne’s exhibition—like the 1963 exhibition–will open with an example of the 42-line Bible, the first book produced with moveable type.
Medical History Museum
The Medical History Museum has over 6,000 objects in its collection covering the history of medicine in Australia and overseas. It has a great collection of nineteenth century remedies some were merely forms of quackery. Featured in the museum is the Magneto-electric machine, 1885, which was claimed to cure nervous diseases through administering a small electric shock.
Details of more feature events to come.
Event Partners
The Cultural Treasures Festival 2012 is presented in conjunction with Melbourne Open House and the ANZAAB Rare Book Fair.
Getting Here
The University of Melbourne
Enter campus from Swanston St or Grattan St (Carlton); Elizabeth St/Royal Pde (Parkville)
Melway maps 2B, 43 and 75A
By tram along Swanston Street: tram numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 16, 64, 67, 72
By tram along Elizabeth Street/Royal Parade: tram number 19
Parking: University Square Car Park. Entry Berkeley St (near corner of
Grattan St). Fees apply. Enter campus via gate 10 on Grattan St.