Some cities have half a dozen museums scattered all over town, all competing for your attention. Darwin's Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) has solved that problem by squeezing five museums into one. That makes a lot of sense in a part of Australia that's very sparsely populated, while still having a rich variety of history, wildlife, culture and arts. The MAGNT is a place where all the threads of that story can be woven together.
Perhaps one of the most fascinating sections of MAGNT is the one showing works from the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award. This national award recognises the best in Aboriginal and Torres Strait art every year. With a large Aborigine population living here in the Northern Territories, it's an award often won by local artists. The works on display are dramatic, life-affirming and always thought-provoking.
A separate gallery focuses on the artistic achievements of the peoples of Southeast Asia. With Darwin closer to many cities there than it is to Canberra, the Northern Territories is increasingly looking to the north. Interesting and varied crafts, such as wood carvings, ceramics, bead-work and silk-work are on display, from places like Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
Similar links – and contrasts – are made in the Maritime Gallery, which looks at the sea-faring technologies of Australia and SE Asia. This huge open gallery has many craft dangling from the ceiling, including pearling luggers, dug-out canoes and a Vietnamese refugee boat. And continuing the maritime theme, wander into the room dedicated to recreating Typhoon Tracy. In 1975 this storm crashed into Darwin from the sea, flattening the town.
Of course, the Northern Territories are famed for their wildlife – not just their occasional wild storms – and there is an exhibition given over to stuffed kangaroos, wallabies and dingoes. The sight that the crowds are drawn to, however, is old “Sweetheart” – the preserved and mounted skeleton of a five-metre long monster of a crocodile. This salt-water crocodile was plaguing the boats of a billabong in 1979, and was captured, in the hope of taking him to a local croc farm. Sadly he died, but his memory lives on at the MAGNT.
