About Us: Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can I bring people to visit the Centre?
2. Is the Centre now part of the Powerhouse Museum?
3. Does the Centre run a grants program?
4. How does the Centre select its projects?
5. Does the Centre collect things?
6. Does the Centre present exhibitions?
7. What is 'migration heritage'?
8. What do we mean by 'communities'?
9. What is 'movable heritage'?
10. What is the postal address for the Centre?

1. Can I bring people to visit the Centre?

The Centre is located in an office at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney and does not provide visitor access. It is an innovative virtual heritage centre similar to an online museum. The web enables us to showcase the State's migration heritage places and collections no matter where they are located.

Our website presents an exciting program of online exhibitions you can view featuring heritage collections and people's memories. You can visit many of our exhibitions at venues across New South Wales. The website is also a gateway to help you plan visits to explore fascinating heritage places and regions important to New South Wales' history of migration and settlement.

2. Is the Centre now part of the Powerhouse Museum?

While the Centre is located in an office at the Powerhouse Museum, it maintains an independent brand, logo, staff and identity. The Powerhouse Museum's governing Board of Trustees, led by Trust President, Dr Nicholas Pappas, and the Museum's senior management, led by Ms Jennifer Sanders, Deputy Director, ensure that the objectives of the Centre are realised and that appropriate governance of its operations are maintained.

A Panel of Advisors brings a range of independent perspectives to the work of the Centre which has its own Strategic Plan. The Centre is not an exclusive Powerhouse Museum activity. Some of the Centre's programs are developed in partnership with the Museum and many others are developed independently with other State cultural institutions and a diverse network of community, government, educational and cultural organisations.

The Centre's location at the Powerhouse Museum enables it to draw from the Museum's curatorial and collection management expertise and experience in exhibition, education, promotion, public program and new media development to support the Centre's work. The Centre presents exhibitions in partnership with the Museum in its Australian Communities Gallery.

The Collections Australia Council's Collections Australia Network (CAN), formerly known as Australian Museums Online (AMOL) is also located at the Powerhouse Museum. CAN complements the Centre's collections documentation work and provides opportunities to showcase the work of communities on the web and migration heritage collections online.

3. Does the Centre run a grants program?

The Centre does not run a grants program but works in partnership with State cultural institutions and a diverse network of community, government, educational and cultural organisations which match or contribute to the Centre's funding to achieve shared project objectives in line with the Centre's Strategic Plan.

The Centre encourages communities to apply for the full range of New South Wales Government heritage and community grants programs which reflect and foster the State's cultural diversity.

4. How does the Centre select its projects?

The Centre establishes a work program to achieve the objectives in its Strategic Plan. Projects proposed for the Centre's annual work program are assessed against the following criteria:

• Relevance allied to core business including places, people and associated collections and themes that are important in migration history;
• Definition of impact in terms of outcomes, benefits and sustainability including evidence of a strategic plan;
• Opportunity to develop equity including ensuring that both small and large community groups are represented;
• Generation of partnerships;
• Sound heritage methods and practice;
• Content value for Centre's website; and
• Balance of projects and resources throughout the Centre's program.

View our projects.

5. Does the Centre collect things?

The Centre is not a collecting organisation like a museum, gallery, library or archive. We usually encourage migration heritage collections to remain where they have an important historic association as opposed to being centralised into a collection. This can be at heritage place or a town or region, or within a family or a community. The Centre encourages communities to document their collections, record object stories and assess cultural heritage significance to make informed decisions about how to care for collections.

6. Does the Centre present exhibitions?

We present exhibitions in partnership with the Powerhouse Museum in its Australian Communities Gallery and at other venues in partnership with other New South Wales cultural institutions. We also present community exhibitions based on regional heritage studies in partnership with regional museums and local government bodies across rural and regional New South Wales. The Centre also strengthens the interpretation of migration heritage places you can visit.

Our website presents an exciting program of online exhibitions you can view featuring heritage collections and people's memories. You can visit many of our exhibitions at venues across New South Wales.

7. What is 'migration heritage'

All people in Australia share the legacy of migration. Migration heritage is the legacy of people's experiences of leaving one country and culture, travelling, settling in and adapting to a new culture and place, and becoming familiar with it and its people, and continuing and adapting traditional culture.

This legacy can be found in many things such as personal belongings, community collections, language, food, music, beliefs, traditions and places all of which have significance for individuals or groups.

The Centre's projects have a particular emphasis on migration heritage collections and places and associated memories and recording the memories of ageing migrants.

8. What do we mean by 'communities'?

We all belong to ethnic, cultural, spiritual and linguistic groups, of which the basis could be a racial, social, geographic or an historical relationship. In Australia 'ethnic' has popularly been used to refer to people from non-English speaking backgrounds or with non-Anglo Celtic origins. The Centre works on projects with all communities regardless of racial, linguistic, spiritual or historical origin.

9. What is 'movable heritage'?

'Movable heritage' is a term used to define any natural or manufactured object of heritage significance. Movable heritage may be an integral part of the significance of heritage places. It can also belong to cultural groups, communities or regions of New South Wales. Like other types of heritage, it provides historical information about people's experiences, ways of life and relationships with the environment. It also helps us to learn about people who may have been left out of written historical accounts, including women and migrant communities.

Movable heritage can prompt people to remember experiences and reflect family and community histories. People's experiences of migration and settlement are rarely given a voice in official and administrative histories of government migration policies. Movable heritage can help migrant communities keep their cultures alive and maintain traditions and practices. Because movable heritage is portable, it is easily sold, relocated or thrown away during changes of ownership, fashion or use. Movable heritage held by ageing migrants is not always valued by the next generation. Movable heritage is vulnerable to loss, damage, theft, dispersal and disposal, often before its heritage significance is appreciated and before people's migration memories are recorded.

10. What is the postal address for the Centre?

PO Box K346
Haymarket, NSW, 1238
Australia