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Cultural gifts
Well here we are-at the beginning of our journey into a new century and a new millennium. Many of the cultural foundations currently in place will allow us to move forward from a position of considerable strength. Equally there are a myriad of 'unknowns' ahead as a result of the information revolution and globalisation.
Picking up on this theme, Artbeat invited some of Australia's current cultural officials to reflect for a moment on the most significant gift that the century just ended bequeathed to the future.
I embrace the sentiments of Arthur Doughty, one of Canada's longest serving national archivists who said: 'Of all national assets, archives are the most precious ... they are the gift of one generation to another and the extent of our care of them marks the extent of our civilisation'. So, at the end of the 20th century and of our first century of national government, my pick for our most significant gift to the next century is the nation's archives.
It documents the big issues of the century-immigration, relations with Indigenous Australians, multiculturalism, health, war and the environment-as well as information about almost all of us. This valuable cultural legacy preserves the truth of our history and perhaps helps guide our future. This national collection and the democratisation of access to it (and indeed to all significant collections around Australia) is a legacy I hope we will value and nurture.
George Nichols
Director-General, National Archives of Australia
Our understanding and mastery of the human immune system is one of the greatest successes and disasters of the 20th century.
When antibiotics were first used to treat bacterial infection they were hailed as the greatest lifesavers of all time. Until the 80s antibiotics were used indiscriminately for all types of illnesses-even those like the common cold where antibiotics were useless.
As a result antibiotic-resistant strains have become so prevalent that we are now facing a future where people are dying from infections as they did in the 20s and antibiotics
are no longer the all-powerful lifesavers.
The people of the next century will learn from our mistakes and they will understand that all biological systems are inter-related, that nature often knows best and that if human beings and the Earth are to survive we must respect the complex relationships between all living things.
Dr Annie Ghisalberti
Director, National Science and Technology Centre-Questacon
This century has allowed us to engage with images as never before. Techniques of reproduction have proliferated. The end of the century sees the digital image about to offer us the type of quantum leaps from radio to television. What it all means is not yet clear. But the power of the unique art object remains-reproductions are never good enough!
Dr Brian Kennedy
Director, National Gallery of Australia
In a word - access. This century's extraordinary developments in transportation and communication (both electronic and film) have allowed people from all around the world to experience firsthand (real and virtual) our world's cultural achievements in all their manifestations. Today we take for granted a level of immediate access, which was hardly even dreamt of a hundred years ago. Mind you, some would argue our ready access to culture and different cultures is fast eroding the differences which make such experiences so special.
Kevin Fewster
Director, Powerhouse Museum (formerly of the Australian National Maritime Museum)
The two most significant cultural legacies of the century are the fashion of wearing baseball caps backwards, and monochromatic paintings. No, I'm serious! This is not just because monochromatic painting makes even artistically incapable people such as me able to paint art (witness the white monochromatic mural on my living room ceiling), and the baseball cap fashion means that when I come dressed in some monumentally stupid outfit I can claim it is fashion rather than my ineptitude! In fact what these two cultural expressions represent is freedom in culture. The liberation from rules of cultural expression is as important as any other aspect of free speech, in preserving our culture and its values.
I should also note, given our role here at ScreenSound Australia, that recorded moving image and sound are the heart of cultural communication for the 20th century. They provide a cultural record unmatched by any other cultural form in history. These media are the cultural legacy of the 20th century.
Ron Brent
Director, ScreenSound Australia (formerly the National Film and Sound Archive)