Museum Careers Series

Tess Allas is a Wiradjuri curator and has strong links to Tharawal Country in Wollongong. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong and a master’s of Curation from The University of Sydney. For the past three decades Tess has curated many exhibitions of First Nations contemporary art in both Australia and iInternationally for organisations including Wollongong Art Gallery, Carriageworks, Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney Opera House, Art Gallery of South Australia, Murray Art Museum Albury, Gorman Museum (University of California) and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection (University of Virginia). In 2021, Tess wrote the Museum of Sydney’s Indigenous Contemporary Art Acquisition Strategy. Tess firmly believes in the power of contemporary art in having the ability to correct history and uncover hidden truths.

Coomaditchie: The Art of Place

Inspired by wonderful history teachers and after her own foray as a high school teacher, Anna found herself drawn to the world of museums and heritage interpretation. In a 20-year career she has worked across a diverse field including visitor interpretation, education and curatorial. Her great passion is people and their stories and how museums can best craft an experience that reveals something intrinsic and true of those lives and communities.

Susannah Place

Jordan is a descendant of the Djirringanj people of the Yuin Nation of the far south coast of NSW. Growing up, when Jordan wasn’t out surfing he developed a keen interest in studying the law and how it disproportionately affects Aboriginal communities. He went on to study law and anthropology at university. While still feeling fresh out of uni, Jordan gained project-work experience in the fields of legal reform, digital media, tutoring, and now archival research, working on the First Nations Community Access to Archives project for language revitalisation.

First Nations Community Access to Archives

Aaron’s journey with ‘things’ is a long and varied one involving formal studies of design, working in fashion, managing a contemporary art collection, and eventually obtaining a PhD in Egyptian archaeology. Those seemingly disparate experiences converged on an academic career that saw him work with museum collections around the world to explore ancient material technologies and the ways that people create and use objects to express identity and culture. Aaron has worked as a specialist on numerous excavations in Egypt for over a decade, and from 2019 to 2023 he was a postdoctoral research fellow based in Vienna. He is the author of a monograph and numerous peer-reviewed articles, and has given keynote lectures at leading museums and universities across Europe and the USA. Now back in Australia, Aaron has relished the opportunity to learn more about the history of his home country, and as Research Manager at Museums of History NSW he looks forward to finding innovative ways to use our diverse collections to create knowledge and share it with our audiences.