A love letter to those who sought to find a new place to call home in Australia: the ones who came during times of turbulence, the ones who wanted a change and those still arriving. The National Library of Australia (NLA) has unveiled its latest exhibition, Hopes and Fears: Australian Migration Stories, which runs until 2 February 2025.

Through an exploration of carefully curated objects, we are invited to accompany migrants on their journeys, experience their challenges and learn more about the knowledge they brought with them.

“When the most recent census was done, it showed that over half of Australians are either migrants or the children of migrants. For the other Australians, most of them, if you go back two or three generations, there’s a migrant there. So, that tells us that nearly all Australians have a migration story,” says Dr Guy Hansen, Director of Exhibitions at the NLA.

Inspired by the family mantlepiece, walking through the sliding doors to the exhibition space you are greeted by smiling faces framed on the wall – some from home countries, and some taken in Australia. The exhibition starts long before any photographs were taken.

“Before we can talk about migration, you have to talk about the prior occupation of Australia by Indigenous people, this is where we start… When the British arrived, they didn’t get permission and colonisation has gone on since then,” says Dr Hansen.

The first room explores the early colonisation period through paintings, documentation and a secondary convict uniform from Van Diemen’s Land which can be dated back to the 1830s.

“It’s juxtaposed here with a convict parson,” says Dr Hansen. “Some convicts did get sent away for secondary punishment, but other convicts got pardoned and went on to have families, settled and became quite successful.”

More than just pages in a book, the NLA houses enormous collections of advertising materials, personal letters and documentation, photos, pamphlets, clothing and trinkets that help tell a diverse range of histories.

Employment is often a reason for migration, the exhibition captures this through posters and details on the big jobs that drew people in. A highlight of this idea is the model from the Snowy Hydro-Electric Scheme that provided more than 60,000 migrants gainful employment.

Not shying away from the difficult topics that relate to migration, the exhibition explores racial prejudice, even at government level.

“There was some agreement among the colonies that there would be restrictions on non-European migration under various pieces of legislation, the main one being the Immigration Restriction Act, known as the White Australia Policy. People from Asiatic, African or coloured backgrounds weren’t able to come into Australia and they used the dictation test to stop them.”

The final room of the exhibition is like the family lounge with artworks and photographs on the wall, these respond to migration and showcase the diversity of Australian communities. On the far wall, a bookcase holds more stories of migration, family recipes and traditional tales that visitors can sit in one of the comfortable chairs and read. The learning opportunities don’t stop there.

“There’s been a great history of migrant communities having their own newspapers in their language and the library holds many of those newspapers and has digitised them, they’re now available via Trove,” says Dr Hansen.

Combining two years of work from a team of curators researching and scouring the library’s collections for the most eye-catching objects with a story of migration to tell.

“The success of Australia today is built on a lot of hard work of migrants. Understanding that history is really important and appreciating that has been a major driving force in the growth of Australia,” says Dr Hansen.

Although we are a multicultural country, there is often the stigma that Australia is inherently racist, Dr Hansen says it is a complex issue. 

“There’s a lot of discussion and debate about migration a lot of it perhaps is not informed by a good understanding. A show like this demonstrates the way the library can contribute to community debates.”

A resource library, the NLA has the means to help visitors create their own family trees, something the exhibition may inspire. Dr Hansen hopes that it will spark conversations about family histories.

“People often come in groups or family groups, even across different generations. The material in the exhibition will be a trigger for their own memory and discussion about what migration means to them.”

Walk through the story of us in Hopes and Fears: Australian Migration Stories at the National Library of Australia until 2 February; nla.gov.au.

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