Burnie Regional Museum - Federation Street Project

Published on 22 June 2020

The Burnie Regional Museum remains closed to the public for the time being, but staff are busy working behind-the-scenes to complete important cleaning, conservation and collection management projects.

Burnie City Council Mayor Steve Kons said “We are making the most of this opportunity to undertake some of those tasks that are impossible to do when we are open to the public – our first priority is to clean and photograph every object in our permanent gallery space Federation Street. Information about these objects is being recorded and added to our database. We have set up a production line with workstations for different purposes, including cleaning, photography, accession forms, numbering and treatment.

We usually rely on a large and wonderfully dedicated group of volunteers who do a whole raft of behind-the-scenes work here at the museum. Unfortunately, because the majority of our volunteers fall into the ‘at risk’ category for COVID-19, it may still be quite some time before they are able to return to work. However, we have been fortunate to have staff from other areas of Council redeployed to assist with the Federation Street project.”

Many of the objects in Federation Street have been on display since it opened in 1971 and some are in need of conservation work, therefore these items will be removed from display for treatment.

Federation Street will celebrate its 50th birthday next year, it is the perfect time to rejuvenate the exhibition and we look forward to reopening with new and improved interpretation in the permanent gallery.