Creating Perth

The Creating Perth exhibition has opened on the ground floor of the State Library. It explores the ways visions of Perth – both compatible and contested – have shaped this place, revealing many layers of our city’s history. The exhibition features photos, paintings, maps, videos and stories from the State Library, State Records Office and loans from community.

The exhibition themes are: Waugal shaping the landscape; Early European maps shaping the city, and more recent re-inscription of Noongar names and information back into the map; Shaping the river’s edge; Rebuilding the city: gold rushes and modernism; and Shaping Kings Park. The exhibition also reflects on the role of the Library in remembering, and the ways library collections have changed over time.

Exciting images and artefacts featured in the exhibition include a six-metre reproduction of the 1892 cycloramic (panorama) of Perth drawn by architect John Stewart Jackson, an 1887 plan for reclaiming the foreshore for a cricket ground and public gardens, and a quilt “Balbuk’s Country – Unforseen Future”.