Melbourne's Living Museum of the West

Story

Melbourne's Living Museum of the West is an ecomuseum and community social history museum in Melbourne's western suburb of Maribyrnong. It was established as part of Victoria's sesquicentenary (150 year anniversary) in 1984, along with the Children's Museum and the Museum of Chinese Australian History.Origin and philosophyGenerally referred to as the Living Museum of the West, or just the Living Museum, it was established in 1984, specifically to address the perceived disadvantage of Melbourne's Western Region, which as well as being generally a working class, industrial area, was considered to lack many cultural facilities. The ecomuseum concept was adopted to focus on the environment, landscape and people and their culture, and to involve the community in recording and preserving their own stories.Described as "Australia's first ecomuseum, the museum focusses on the stories of people of Melbourne's Western Region, extending from Footscray to Bacchus Marsh, and from Sunbury to Werribee. Initially intended to be a museum without walls and focussing on oral history recording and community participation, it did not have a tradition objects collection until more recently.CollectionThe Living Museum maintains a Resources Collection which includes over the collection of documents, tapes and artefacts which form the Resource Centre, as well as the personnel and facilities at the Museum itself. The collections include published books, reports and articles; maps, plans and drawings; a photographic archive; oral histories; and exhibition materials. It contains about 500 artefacts, 5000 archival records (primarily copies of documents and plans), 10,000 photographic images (both copies of historical photographs and contemporary photos documenting the region and museum activities). Its most significant core collection is the oral history recordings, which focusses on the "themes of migration, work, environment, culture, heritage, industry, women in the community and the everyday stories of the people of Melbourne's West".