Convict Memorial Hub: Tasmania’s dark past to be brought to life in hi-tech new permanent installation
The lives of Tasmanian convicts will be put under the spotlight in an exciting new permanent installation being established at one of the state’s most well-known heritage sites.
Tasmania
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Tasmania’s vast array of convict records will soon be brought to life in spectacular fashion with the launch of a new hi-tech Convict Memorial Hub at the old Penitentiary Chapel.
The state government has contributed $1.25m to support the project, which the National Trust Tasmania will establish, assisted by the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority (PAHSMA).
The digitally driven memorial, which is currently still under construction, will feature a large four-sided screen and projectors and will be located in Court Room No. 2 at the Penitentiary Chapel on the corner of Campbell and Brisbane streets.
The ambitious initiative is underpinned by extensive work conducted over the last 15 years by Digital History Tasmania to digitise the state’s convict records, in partnership with Libraries Tasmania and the Tasmanian Archives.
The memorial hub will allow locals and tourists alike to look up 62,500 historical convicts on a supplied iPad, with the records of a given convict able to be beamed onto the imposing screens suspended from the ceiling.
Using artificial intelligence, likenesses of every convict will be available to view, based on physical descriptions contained in the records.
National Trust Tasmania managing director Scott Carlin said the Penitentiary Chapel was the “perfect” place to tell the convict story.
“The records actually used to exist in a building that’s now demolished that was part of the complex here. It was the deputy gaoler’s house,” he said.
“The other interesting thing is that every male convict was actually processed through this site before being sent off across the island. They’d be marched up from the docks and into the jail courtyard and be processed … and then they’d be assigned to private properties or into government service.
“We’ve adopted the motto: The convict story starts here. And hopefully from this Hobart base, people can come and see the hub and they can be armed with good stories of convicts and then go to sites across the island.”
The British government transported about 76,000 convicts to Tasmania – then known as Van Diemen’s Land – between 1804 and 1853.
Professor Hamish-Maxwell Stewart, a historian who was instrumental in the digitisation of the convict records, said the process sometimes felt like “putting together the world’s most complicated jigsaw”.
“[Researchers] meet several times a year to share the results of the many research projects which draw on the resultant dataset which is by far the largest collection of digitised historical records in Australia,” Professor Maxwell-Stewart, who is also on the board of National Trust Tasmania, said.
“The collaboration with the National Trust provides an opportunity to create ways in which others can interact with that dataset.
“The Convict Memorial Hub has been designed to turn research data into a radically new kind of storytelling machine. The whole research team is excited about it. The project has been a collaborative triumph.”
PAHSMA CEO Will Flamsteed said the management authority was providing advice and expertise to inform the project.
“We look forward to seeing how this initiative will add to Tasmania’s convict experience,” he said.
The Convict Memorial Hub is expected to have its official launch in September.
Originally published as Convict Memorial Hub: Tasmania’s dark past to be brought to life in hi-tech new permanent installation
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