Image credit: Miss Mersey Bluff contestants, 1956, Robinson Collection R11686.4
Interested community members are invited to share their reflections, stories and ideas, and help shape the next chapter of the Robinson Collection at an open Community Conversation at the Devonport Regional Gallery on Thursday 10 August, 5.30–7 pm.
Coinciding with the Gallery’s current exhibition Past & Present Tense: 20 years of the Robinson Collection, the Community Conversation provides an open forum to discuss the future of this invaluable archive and how it might be accessed, displayed and used in future years.
Over the past twenty years, Devonport Regional Gallery has held sixteen Robinson Collection exhibitions that have collectively served as a window into life on the North-West Coast of Tasmania during the 20th century. Through these exhibitions, the Robinson Collection continues to be a source of intrigue, nostalgia and reverence for Gallery staff, community members and visitors alike. Past & Present Tense features a selection of photographic prints from each Robinson exhibition to date, accompanied by reflections from artists, curators, researchers, volunteers and others who have come to know the collection over the past two decades.
Past & Present Tense prompts visitors to reflect on the value of this collection, and share their ideas for the next chapter of the Robinson archive.
About the Robinson Collection …
The Robinson Collection comprises over 20,000 photographic negatives and was purchased by the Devonport City Council in 1993. The images, which vary in subject from portraits to land-scapes, street-scapes and crowd-scapes, were taken by Bert Robinson and his son Albert. Bert established the photographic business in Devonport in 1927. Following his death in 1953, his son Albert carried on the studio until he died suddenly in 1975, when the business ceased to operate.
Devonport Regional Gallery
