Museum South Brisbane

Journey through the shared history of Brisbane as we walk in the footsteps of the world's oldest living culture. Led by local Aboriginal guides, explore Magandjin, a modern metropolis with an ancient past.


WHERE WE WALK
We meet at the City Hall entrance on King George Square, where your guide explains what Magandjin means, whose Country this is, and why a city built on a river bend was a meeting place long before it was a capital.


The bronze kangaroos. The kangaroos are the way into the Petrie story. Tom Petrie grew up in early Brisbane speaking Turrbal, was taken into ceremony as a boy, and spent his life moving between two worlds. A story about relationship, and about what was recorded, by whom, and what that record leaves out.


The flags. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags flying in the civic heart of the city. What each flag means, when they were designed, and how recently they came to fly here at all.


The Stolen Generations plaque. The quietest stop on the walk and the one that lands hardest. The plaque marks the forcible removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, and your guide speaks to what that meant in Queensland specifically, and often to their own family's experience of it.


City Hall. The building opened in 1930 as a statement of what Brisbane wanted to be, and the walk reads it as a record of who was counted and who was not. The tympanum (also called the pediment) above Brisbane City Hall’s King George Square entrance, sculpted by Daphne Mayo between 1927 and 1930. Its title is “The Progress of Civilisation.”


The Sutton Family exhibit at the Pullman. A working hotel holding First Nations art in a public space, which raises the question the whole walk circles: who commissions this work, who sees it, and on whose terms.


Witnessing to Silence, Dr Fiona Foley, 2004. Stainless steel columns holding ash in laminated glass, cast bronze lotus lilies, and granite pavers etched with the names of 94 Queensland towns where massacres of Aboriginal people are known to have taken place. Most people walk over it every day without knowing what they are standing on. That is the point, and it is why this stop sits near the end.


The walk closes at the Museum of Brisbane on Level 3 of City Hall. There is always a First Nations exhibition on show, and the tour activates it as part of this stop.


GOOD TO KNOW
Duration: 90 minutes
Departs: 10am, Thursdays and Fridays
Starts: City Hall entrance, King George Square
Ends: Museum of Brisbane, Level 3, City Hall
Accessibility: all routes are wheelchair accessible
Children: children aged 6 to 16 pay the child rate
We do not recommend children under 6 attend, as it is a long walk for them. The exception is infants in a pram, who attend free of charge.


WHAT TO BRING
• Water bottle
• Comfortable shoes and attire for the weather on the day
• Camera
• Umbrella, just in case