BRAC EXHIBITIONS
BRAC endeavours to share our collection and inspire research using our archives through exhibitions. All our exhibitions and events are also posted as Facebook Events where you can share details and invite friends to join you.
Current & Upcoming Exhibitions
Richardson & the Albert Medal
Winter 2023
To mark the centenary of Richard Richards' citation for the Albert Medal for bravery, we have put together a display that showcases some of the records in our collection that relate to Richards and his family. Though he was a school teacher in Ballarat, Richards had grown up in Bendigo and the family were closely associated with St Matthew's Church in Long Gully. Where did he grow up? Is the family home still standing? What sort of teacher was he? Where does his family appear in the archives? Find out all this and much more by taking a look upstairs in the Bendigo Library.
The display includes some of the books available from the Library about Richards and the related Antarctic expeditions, as well as a QR code to listen to a great ABC Central Victoria interview with the author of The Boy From Long Gully, all about Richards and his life.
The display available during all Bendigo Library opening hours through Winter.
Past Exhibitions
Still On Track: 160 Years of Rail in Bendigo
12 October - 30 November 2022
To celebrate the anniversary of the Melbourne-Sandhurst rail line opening, we have put together a series of displays upstairs in the Bendigo Library showcasing times from the BRAC and wider PROV collection. They cover the opening of the railway, the refreshment rooms, the Stationmaster's house, the Victorian Railway Institute, and a range of other random and interesting pieces from the archives. This exhibition is free and open during Library opening hours.
Such Sweet Sorrow: The Darker Side of Chocolatiers & Confectioners in North East Victoria
8 - 28 July 2021(Online & Presentations)
To celebrate Bendigo's newly conferred status as a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, BRAC is proud to present Such Sweet Sorrow in July - just in time for International Chocolate Day.
From Percy Smith, who returned from war with his French bride to open a chocolate shop in Pall Mall but was followed by tragedy, to the remarkable Mrs Rees of Chewton who lost her husband and then her confectionery factory, from the suspicious death of MacRobertson’s foreman in the Lockwood bush, to the businessman who flew too close to the Sunraysia sun – Such Sweet Sorrow uses BRAC’s collection to explore the bitter with the sweet in the world of chocolate and confectionery in the north west across the centuries.
Locating the Women of Bendigo
8 March 2020 (Online Exhibition)
To celebrate International Women's Day in 2020, BRAC present a map plotting the places where some of Bendigo's most fascinating (but lesser known) women have grown up, lived, worked and played across time. BRAC hopes these bite-size vignettes of women's history inspires further research into these incredible ladies and their feats as part of Bendigo's broader story.
Langston Street in Fifteen Objects
10 - 30 October 2019
Exposing the secret history of Bendigo, one street at a time. Langston Street in Fifteen Objects showcases the fascinating hidden history of ordinary people through items connected to them and their exploits.