Celebrate International Museum Day from home

15 May 2020

Untold stories: living with ability retold online

Tweed Regional Museum will be releasing a special digital exhibition on Monday 18 May 2020 to celebrate International Museum Day.

This year’s theme is ‘Museums for equality, diversity and inclusion’. The exhibition, Untold Stories: living with ability, captures a diverse range of stories from ordinary people whose rich life experiences include living with disability.

Participants in this project generously allowed the Museum to record and share their stories through audio, video and text. The project was originally displayed in 2017 at Tweed Regional Museum Murwillumbah and it has been renewed as an online exhibition.

“We are delighted to be able to launch the online version of this exhibition. It’s our first digital exhibition and we hope it will bring these stories to a much wider audience,” Museum Director Judy Kean said.

“It is no small thing to allow large parts of your life story to be recorded and used as the basis for a public exhibition.

“To do so in the community in which you live, in order to enable others to better understand experiences and issues which they would otherwise not have a ‘window’ to, is especially generous.

“One of the most striking aspects of this project has been that while each person’s experience of disability is significant and sometimes life changing, it’s just one part of a much bigger richer story often characterised by survival, adventure, academic and sporting achievement, love, advocacy, spirituality, generosity, tenacity, and much more.

“Tracy Barrell, Una Cowdroy, Jan Cronly, Suzy Hudson, Bev Larsson, Ally Page, Nicole Randolph, Bill and Yvonne Trenear have allowed us to share their story and we’re very grateful for their ongoing commitment to the project and their generosity,” Ms Kean said.

The online exhibition is part of Council's Together Tweed initiative and is designed to keep the community connected to discovering local history during the COVID-19 shutdown.

The online exhibition will be available on the Museum’s website museum.tweed.nsw.gov.au from 8am Monday 18 May 2020.

Untold Stories: living with ability project is supported by the NSW Government through CREATE NSW.

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Caption: Oral history interviewers and participants in Untold Stories: living with ability discuss the project. Left to right: Jo Kijas, Suzy Hudson (and Cooper), Karen Collins and Milena Morrow. (Please note this photo was taken before the COVID-19 crisis, so there is no social distancing).