Destined to become a permanent exhibition at QVMAG Royal Park, The First Tasmanians: Our Story collection will display a number of historic items for the first time as well as some contemporary pieces made specifically for the exhibition. 

Lola Greeno was part of an Aboriginal Reference Group which spent the past two years working alongside project curator Greg Lehman to ensure the exhibition accurately reflected past and present Tasmanian Aboriginal culture. 

Mrs Greeno said she was particularly fond of a shell necklace crafted by celebrated Tasmanian Aboriginal Lucy Beeton. 

“There’s so much in here that you’ll probably need to come three times,” Mrs Greeno said.

“It’s pretty amazing what we’ve got in this space, I thought we weren’t going to be able to fit so much in there, then when I walked in when it was finished I thought ‘oh my gosh, we’ve got so much’.”

The exhibition, which comes in the middle of NAIDOC week, is accompanied by a phone application which has been developed to give visitors and students a richer and more enduring experience.

QVMAG director Richard Mulvaney said he hoped the new display would help shine the light on an important aspect of Tasmania’s history. 

“The success of this exhibition is the fact that Aboriginal people have been involved with the whole planning, the formation and installation - it’s their story but it’s also our story,” Mr Mulvaney said. 

“As far as I’m concerned there’s been a huge gap in the story of Launceston that we were telling here at QVMAG and that was the incredible length of time that Aboriginal people have been in Tasmania.

“It’s a remarkable story of arrival, adaptation and survival and we needed to tell it.”

Governor Kate Warner had the honour of officially opening the exhibition at a ceremony on Friday night, where Launceston mayor Albert Van Zetten also spoke. 

“This is a fantastic exhibition and a very important exhibition for the Aboriginal community but I think it’s also very important for other Tasmanians,” Alderman Van Zetten said. 

“We need to know their history and I think the more we understand the history of Aboriginal people, the more people appreciate where they’ve come from and why they treat things like the Gorge and the land as being so important to them.”

The Tasmanian Community Fund contributed $290,000 to the project.