No more silent tears for the National Museum of Australia

The National Museum of Australia, in Canberra, has neither interest in displaying objects pertaining to the Forgotten Australians - children who experienced care in institutions or outside a home setting in Australia during the 20th century - in any of its galleries, nor establishing meaningful, open dialogue about this crucial chapter of our shared, living history. This flies in the face of current, international discussions that detail how museums can, and should, engage with under-represented community groups in ways that do not replicate dominant power relations (for example, the report Whose cake is it anyway?). The National Museum's refusal to draw attention to this important history makes no sense given current government policies which demonise vulnerable children.

Over 500,000 children experienced life in an orphanage, other institutions or foster care in the 20^th century. 50,000 were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, known as the Stolen Generations. 7,000 were Former Child Migrants from Britian and Malta. The rest - over 440,000 -were non- Indigenous, Australian children. These are the Forgotten Australians, a term sourced from the title of the 2004 report of the Senate inquiry into Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children.

In 2003, advocates for the Forgotten Australians contacted the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, requesting an exhibition about their shared history. It took two years for the Museum to respond. The Museum's response was non-committal.

On 16 November 2009, Prime Minister Rudd delivered the National Apology to the Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants and announced that the Australian Government would fund the National Museum of Australia to create an exhibition about the history and experiences of children in institutional 'care'. Even though the National Museum is an independent, statutory body, it would not have been a good look for this significant public cultural institution to have rejected federal government funding.

The subsequent exhibition Inside: Life in Children's Homes and Institutions, opened in November 2011 and was on display at the National Museum for a paltry three months. Blink and you would have missed it.

I was the co-curator of that exhibition. I was proud of the work but I also understood Forgotten Australians' disillusionment at the struggle, then, to elicit interest from interstate museums to host the exhibition, which was designed for touring. I also share their grief, triggered by the absence of ongoing visibility of their history in the galleries of the National Museum of Australia.

When I worked at the Museum, I sourced over sixty objects relating to the history of the Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants for the National Historical Collection, which the National Museum owns and manages.

One of these objects is a memorial quilt No More Silent Tears for Forgotten Australians, described by Diana James in her review of theInside exhibition 'as a patchwork of handkerchiefs, each inscribed with the names or words of inmates, a testament to bravery'.

In 2019, Forgotten Australians approached the National Museum, asking for the memorial quilt to be displayed for the 10^th anniversary of the National Apology. The Museum conceded – placing it for few weeks in a deserted space off the Main Hall, out of the way, indistinct both through its marginalisation from the main galleries and the absence of an explanatory text panel. A tokenist glimpse.

In 2024, on the eve of the 15^th anniversary of the National Apology, a group of Forgotten Australians travelled to the National Museum of Australia to view No More Silent Tears for Forgotten Australians memorial quilt, off site in the Museum's storage facility. They invited me to join them.

In a glaringly lit, white, cold room, the No More Silent Tears for Forgotten Australians quilt waslaid out on a slab. Forgotten Australians indicated their names on the quilt and shared their memories.

They asked museum staff if the quilt could be displayed in the National Museum. Here was the opportunity for a profound conversation.

Instead, all was offered was defensive rhetoric. My thoughts are bracketed:

• 'We don't create exhibitions on demand' (Where's the ultimatum? I only hear Forgotten Australians wanting to talk with you)
• 'We have DONE an exhibition on the Forgotten Australians' (It only lasted for three months. Most objects in your galleries are displayed for several years)
• 'We rotate stories' (No you don't. You rotate objects. Some historical narratives have been privileged with prolonged representation in the Museum, since its inception– convicts, migration, horseracing, fashion, farming and industry, for example)
• We can digitise the collection (Even so, you will continue to display objects in your galleries. What are the principles that determine what history is confined to an online platform and what is valorised in your galleries?)

Superficial and patronising retorts dominated by explanations about organisational minutiae and Museum governance serve as a smokescreen to avoid an authentic and much-needed, open debate. Council, senior management and all staff at the National Museum of Australia may benefit from, courageously and openly, sharing amongst themselves their collective values and unconscious biases about those historical narratives that pertain to trauma and violence. Because it is fair to assume that that their current curatorial choices are positioning certain survivor groups as more culturally interesting and grief worthy than others.

Museum community engagement may also benefit from a trauma-informed and non-autocratic approach. What might have developed if museum staff in that storeroom had asked the Forgotten Australians:

• What can we do better?
• How can our resources help to support you and your living history?
• What can we do to make the Museum a place that allows you and other Forgotten Australians feel like you matter and belong?
• What objects and narratives are important to you?

There are currently over 47,000 children in statutory, out-of-home care in Australia. Adults who are care-experienced are over-represented in the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, the Northern Territory has lowered the age of criminal responsibility to ten. The Queensland Government aims to amend the Youth Justice Act 1992 to include 'adult crime, adult time'.

There is much that our nation can learn from the experiences of the Forgotten Australians. The National Museum of Australia could play a meaningful role in bringing much-needed democratic, nuancing to the child-justice debate.

The display of the No More Silent Tears for Forgotten Australians memorial quilt would be a good place to start.