Museum celebrates a successful 2018-19

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) Annual Report 2018-19 tabled today confirms an extremely successful year at the museum, with all parts of the museum contributing to its many highlights and successes.

Visitation to the museum continues to remain strong. Over the year, TMAG attracted total visitation of 451,653 across all sites including house museums and research facilities which confirms TMAG’s standing as a must-see destination for visitors and as a cultural and research hub.

Visitation to TMAG’s city site increased modestly to 439 574 in 2018-19, representing continued growth of around 22 per cent over the past four years.

Partnerships and strong community relationships enabled TMAG to present a dynamic and exciting exhibition program including the extremely successful Dinosaur rEvolution: Secrets of Survival exhibition, presented in partnership with the Royal Society of Tasmania in commemoration of the organisation’s 175th anniversary; the award-winning exhibition The National Picture: the art of Tasmania’s Black War delivered in collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia; Thomas Bock with the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham and the British Museum and closer to home Dirty Paper in partnership with Contemporary Art Tasmania and Julie Gough: Tense Past in partnership with Dark Lab.

Public engagement with the museum remained high with 67,065 people actively participating in community and family programs ranging from the Curious Caterpillars Playgroup for 0-3 year olds, regular Discovery Day and school holiday programs, through to the popular Beaker Street@TMAG pop-up science bar events for adults. 19,200 students of all ages attended formal learning programs.

Field work and research projects by TMAG staff continued to expand and enrich the collections. TMAG Herbarium and Zoology scientists participated in the second successful TMAG Expeditions of Discovery initiative at Musselroe Bay and there were 87,694 downloads of TMAG and Herbarium records from the Atlas of Living Australia website supporting important ecological and planning work.

The TMAG Foundation Ltd facilitated the acquisition of a number of significant items for TMAG’s Collection, including the Portrait of Henry Foss by intriguing colonial artist Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and the Marion Oak Sticht charm necklace.

In further good news, TMAG continued to make progress towards sustainability and with careful management was able to balance its budget for the fourth year in a row.

Director of TMAG, Ms Janet Carding is very pleased to report on the positive outcomes from an intensely productive year at the museum.

“As part of the Strategic Plan we have aimed to become a hub for the community’s cultural activity, with partnerships and strong community relationships enabling us to create many exciting and innovative projects in 2018-19,” Ms Carding said.

Download the TMAG Annual Report 2018-19 here.