Murdoch-MacLeod museum gift sends lifeline to sinking island crafts

Samantha HutchinsonNational reporter

Oct 20, 2023 – 5.44pm

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A metres-long Tokelauan canoe used in the 2014 Climate Change protest in Newcastle Harbour has gone on show inside Sydney’s Australian Museum, included in a new dedicated Pasifika Gallery funded in part by a $3 million gift from regenerative farmer Alasdair MacLeod and Prudence Murdoch.

The gallery, which opened this week and is named Wansolmoana – meaning “One Salt Ocean” – includes artefacts from more than 25 Pacific nations and territories and includes new acquisitions of contemporary art as well as newly commissioned works that revive lost creative traditions.

Samantha Hutchinson is the AFR's National Reporter. Most recently, she was CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Before that, she covered Victorian and NSW politics and business for The Australian, the AFR and BRW Magazine.