Burra - an interactive learning space
Burra - an interactive learning space at the Australian Museum, Sydney
A few weeks ago a new visitor experience, and learning centre called “Burra” - opened at the Australian Museum, Sydney. Burra which means “eel” in the original languages of the Sydney area, is a natural history discovery area for children, based on First Nations concepts.
Image © Australian Museum, credit Anna Kučera. Mural by Jasmine Craciun.
Australian Museum First Nations curator and a proud Yugambeh-Minjungbal woman, Courtney Marsh describes Burra as grounded in and guided by Country.
Lucy Cant, 3D designer from our Hong Kong based long-term collaborators, Studio Cassells, said projects like this, based on local indigenous knowledge, can be an enriching and educational experience.
“We had to be constantly aware of ideas that come from a place of ‘westernness’ and be open to stepping out of our own shoes and exploring how to do things differently,” Cant said.
Image © Australian Museum, credit Anna Kučera. Mural by Jasmine Craciun.
Thinking differently also meant taking on board advice from AM’s diverse accessibility group, whose input about providing multiple different sensory “ways in” to the experience paralleled that of the First Nations team.
“Instead of thinking of Sydney as a city, we started thinking of it as ‘Country’ - one of the world’s greatest estuaries, a rich gradient of fresh, bitter and salty waters, home to extraordinary plants and animals, and to people who have lived with them and learned from them for many tens of thousands of years,” Cant added.
All of the spectacular environmental illustrations were brought to life by artist Jasmine Miikika Craciun, a Barkindji and Malyangapa woman.
Image © Australian Museum, credit Anna Kučera. Mural by Jasmine Craciun.
Courtney said to insert: "The hero among all the creatures is Burra, the long-finned eel, who spawns far out in the Pacific and returns to the waters of Sydney as a tiny glass eel, who heads upstream to grow into an adult eel."
Burra in turn links to Songline Ancestors further inland, like Gurungatch, the great water-spirit who carves out the river canyons of the Blue Mountains - their exit to the western plains now impeded by Warragamba Dam. Gurangatch has shown enduring power again this year as western Sydney flooded dramatically for the second year running.
The project took place over two years of the covid pandemic. As a result, we’ve never met many of the AM team except on many, many Zoom calls between Sydney, Wellington and Hong Kong.
At the start of the project, we worked closely with Sara Judge, a Walbunja-Yuin woman and environmental scientist from the south coast of NSW. Sara was inspirational in her creativity, patience and hard work, shuttling between our zoom calls and long journeys to the communities in and around Sydney seeking guidance as the exhibition was evolving and sharing feedback, comments and content back to the team.
It was one of the most uplifting and rewarding projects we have ever had the privilege to work on, and we are thrilled to have played a part in its success.
Image © Australian Museum, credit Anna Kučera. Mural by Jasmine Craciun.