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Curators outline examples of material culture research in Australian museums through objects including a wall-hanging crafted in a refugee camp, a military jacket, a wool collection, mining models and Australian Inland Mission Frontier Fête material.

Four National Museum of Australia curators provide examples of material culture research into a boomerang, tools used by Hmong gardeners, a dress worn at the opening of Parliament House in 1927 and objects from the Snowy Hydro-Electric Scheme.

Archaeologist Mike Smith, curator Guy Hansen, historian Margaret Anderson and anthropologist Fred Myers reflect on the way their four different disciplines have approached physical evidence at the 2008 National Museum Collections Symposium.

Curator Karen Schamberger tells the story of Guna Kinne’s Latvian national dress, assembled over a period of 20 years in Latvia, Germany and Australia, and now part of the National Museum’s National Historical Collection.

The lives of a group of young sisters growing up on Baden farm at Grong Grong in country New South Wales around 1912 are revealed in a collection of journals, examined by curator Susannah Helman.

A Dollond achromatic telescope used by Captain John Gore helps to tell remarkable stories about Captain James Cook’s Pacific voyages and the development of optics and navigational techniques, according to curator Michelle Hetherington.

Explore the history of the Papunya painting movement and discover the current generation of Papunya artists at a forum held in conjunction with the National Museum’s Papunya Painting exhibition.

Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton recounts events since her daughter Azaria was taken from a tent in Australia’s Northern Territory in 1980. She speaks about the National Museum’s Chamberlain collection and the public’s fascination with the case.

A set of ten rare glass plates depicting people and places in north Queensland in the mid-1800s reveal much about pioneering geologist and photographer Richard Daintree and life in the colony, according to curator Martha Sear.

An original bamboo musical instrument made by Minh Tam Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee to Australia, illustrates a meeting of European and Asian traditions and a life changed by war, explains curator Jennifer Wilson.