State Library of Western Australia

Exhibitions and Public Programs

 

Hello, this is Sam Lovell

Fri 21 March – Sun 27 July 2025, Ground Floor Gallery

 

Sam Lovell OAM was born in 1933 on Calwynyardah, a sheep station in the Kimberley. Known as ‘Mr Kimberley’ and often regarded as the father of Aboriginal tourism in Western Australia, Sam and his wife Rosita became the first Aboriginal tour operators in the Kimberley when they established Kimberley Safari Tours in 1981. Sam received the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2003 for his services to tourism and Indigenous affairs. 

Curated by Kimberley based Sarah Yu and Bart Pigram, this exhibition showcases the Sam Lovell collection that was donated to the State Library in 2017 and includes film, oral history, photographs and personal papers. The exhibition opening was a very special event attended by 350 people with Sam, his family and friends, including country music performance complete with yodeling!

 

Women in Conversation: Di Ryder Thu 3 Jul 2025 6:00 – 8:00pm

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Women in Conversation at the State Library is part of a suite of women centred programming in 2025. Hear from some of WA’s groundbreaking and inspirational women who have become leaders and mentors in their chosen fields and actively give back and build communities. WA Women’s Hall of Fame inductee, Dianne (Di) Ryder OAM is a quintessential grandmother and much-loved Aboriginal Elder, who says she wasted her education in the convent school she attended in Toodyay in the 1960s but got a second chance in the most unlikely place: the Australian Army. Her accolades include the Order of Australia and a National NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award for her ceaseless voluntary work with young people in her community and Aboriginal Army veterans. Come and hear this proud Noongar woman in conversation at the State Library.

 

Records of Resistance

Truth, Archives and exposing Aboriginal Histories.

Reflections from the JS Battye Fellow and the State Library’s Inaugural Aboriginal Research Fellow

9 Jul 2025, 5:30pm – 7pm State Library Theatre

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This NAIDOC week, the State Library is proud to host a night of public lectures from two talented Aboriginal researchers, Battye Fellow Shino Konishi, and the inaugural Aboriginal Research Fellow, Jordanna Yoontj Eades. Shino and Jordanna will share their research and revelations over the past year as they delved into archival collections spanning the colonial era to more recent histories of the 1970s and 80s. Audience members are invited to learn from their discoveries and to reflect on two significant Aboriginal stories, with ongoing impact and resonance, and consider both the presence and absence of evidence in our archival collections. Di Ryer OAM, Photograph by Karen Wheatland 32 ‘The Sesquicentenary and the Question of Aboriginal Self Determination’ Dr Shino Konishi. Associate Professor, School of Humanities and the School of Indigenous Studies, UWA ‘Kaniyang Diaspora and the Blackwood River Valley’ Jordanna Yoontj Eades. Anthropologist and Independant Researcher

 

New Acquisitions

 

Perth theatre programs from the 1870s and early 1880s

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This important group of thirteen programmes can be regarded as a time capsule of amateur theatrical and musical performance in Perth, Western Australia in the 1870s and early 1880s. A number of the programmes in this archive appear to be completely unrecorded, and are quite possibly unique survivors. These highly ephemeral printings date from a time before there was any homegrown professional theatre in Western Australia (the first purposebuilt professional theatre in Perth, the Theatre Royal, did not open until 1897). They significantly predate the gold rushes of the 1890s, which saw a huge influx of population into Western Australia and resultant boom in popular entertainments. Perusing the names of the many amateur thespians, scenery artists, musicians and singers who voluntarily participated in these productions, we are struck by the recurrence of surnames belonging to such illustrious Western Australian families as Lefroy, Leake, Prinsep, Hamersley, Forrest and Fraser. Indeed, the archive offers enormous scope for potential research not only into the history of colonial theatre and music, but also the Western Australian social elite prior to the gold rushes.

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Wimmin’s Work

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Women in Media commissioned interviews as part of the Wimmins’ Work Project, to document/record the stories of present-day women in WA and their social and economic value to the State. The interviews were produced by emerging content makers and the subjects focused on the State Library’s collecting priority areas. Those interviewed were: • Captain Carol Dooley – WA’s first female commercial ship captain • Cindy Cartojano – A nurse from the Phillipines who migrated to 33 Australia, completed further nursing studies in W.A. and worked as a nurse for over 33 years • Beew Lan Lim – A lawyer born in Malaysia. After completing studies in London, UK, followed her husband to Western Australia and speaks on the difficulty securing work as a female lawyer at a time when there were only 20 legal firms in Perth. • Barbara Darling – On growing up in the fifties in a strict religious household. Barbara speaks on society’s conservatism, expectations of women, and the lack of opportunities.

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Malcolm Bailey Collection – 1987 America’s Cup Kookaburra III

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Materials related to the Taskforce ’87 Syndicate which was headed by Perth businessman Kevin Parry. Syndicate ‘87 successfully challenged Alan Bond’s Australia IV to secure the right for Kookaburra III to defend the America’s Cup against the US yacht Stars & Stripes. The syndicate disbanded after the defence attempt. Related documentation remained with Malcolm Bailey as the Executive Director of Syndicate ‘87. The collection includes news film, ephemera produced by the Royal Perth Yacht Club, business documents relating to organising the defence, fundraising and other correspondence, race documentation including the protest documentation relating to 5 separate incidents.

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Robert McKay Thompson original artwork & private archives

 

Painter, illustrator, designer and art teacher born in Fremantle, Western Australia. Thompson studied at Swinburne Art School in Melbourne in 1928 and later at Julian Ashton’s in Sydney each weekend from 1936 to 1938. Afterward he worked in the eastern states for several advertising companies. He also designed covers for the Women’s Weekly and later for the Western Mail. A prolific artist, he exhibited numerous times with the West Australian Society of Arts winning several prizes in 1935. The collection includes a large amount of his advertising work, original art sketches, personal correspondence, original artwork for the cover of the Women’s Weekly magazine and publications featuring his work or exhibitions