Two years ago this August in the village of Conzano, a province of Alessandria in Italy, a large crowd gathered with Macmasters Beach artists Stephen Copland and Meredith Brice to celebrate a dream becoming a reality as the Migration as Art Museum stage one officially opened in the “Land of the Australians”.
Mayor Emanuele Demaria welcomed the Museum project to the town, situated on the Montferrat hills famous for having been declared in 1992 as the symbol of the massive emigration of the people to Northern Queensland to work as sugar cane cutters during the 1890-1935 period.
The ancient town square, named Piazza d’Armi (Weapons Square), was renamed Piazza Australia when the twinning connection between Conzano and Ingham in Northern Queensland was established with a ceremony officiated by the then Governor General of Australia Dame Quentin Bryce.
The concept of the Museum was to promote cultural diversity and integration as a hybrid art facility experienced as part contemporary art, part community art, part social history, part heritage and part migration history.
The project began in 1990 after Copland decided to explore his Scottish, Lebanese and Cuban heritage through diaries, travel, teaching and making art.
“Over a 30-year period the Migration as Art Museum concept was developed comprising a series of three archives made about different forms of migration,” he said.
“The Migration Series (1992-2002) visualises the discovery of my Lebanese grandmother’s diary written on her arrival in Melbourne Australia from Cuba in 1911.
“In 2004 Raft-The Drifting Border looked at the darker side of migration and refugees seeking asylum and human rights globally.
“In 2007 a third series was realised for an international travelling exhibition Transit curated by my artist partner Meredith Brice.
“The exhibition interpreted the symbolic and subjective aspects of identities in transit, migration for work in a globalised world.
“Stories are at the heart of this creative archive and Museum concept.”
Following the purchase of the ancient building in the centre of town, the museum project flourished irrespective of impacts of world events including the pandemic, Brexit and disrupted air travel.
Stage one of the building restoration culminated in the successful inaugural opening exhibition in the Summer of 2023, and the completion of the Dame Quentin Bryce Creative Residency program that began in 2024.
The residency was awarded in 2024 to Herman Bashiron Mendolicchio, an Italian researcher, writer, editor and curator, who has worked in Spain for 20 years.
John Monty, a horticulturist, and Jude Reggett, a physiotherapist, from NSW’s Central West, have been awarded this year’s residency.
In 2025 Copland and Brice will return to Italy to develop the stage two exhibition titled Heritage in a large ancient adjoining barn.
“Australia’s ethnic mix has been shaped by immigration, which has driven the country’s economic and social development for over two centuries,” Copeland said.
“Australia is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse countries in the world with more than 300 ancestors.”
Any Central Coast business which would like to sponsor an annual residency for a Central Coast Creative should email migrationasartmuseum@gmail.com or visit https://migrationasartmuseum.au/
