For 12 months through 2021 and 2022, Golden Dragon Museum in partnership with Grimwade Conservation Services, The University of Melbourne, delivered the Loong Conservation Project.
Supported with funding of $133,000 provided by the Victoria State Government through Heritage Victoria’s Living Heritage Grants Program, this Project is recognised as ground-breaking both in the outstanding conservation, care and attention given to Loong and in the various ways it engaged with and was supported by the local community.
To mark and celebrate the completion of this award-winning Project, Golden Dragon Museum, The University of Melbourne’s Grimwade Conservation Services, and Bendigo Chinese Association are presenting a day focusing on Loong and those personal treasures we all look after in our homes. This is a special day to learn more about Loong and his recent outstanding conservation and then to be advised on how best we can apply some of those same skills and techniques along with other expert guidance in looking after our personal and family treasures, records, photographs and archives.
Loong Community Symposium – 8 Speakers, One Dragon
Sunday 5 March, La Trobe Art Institute 10am – 2.30pm. Ticketing: $20 adults, $15 concession, or free for Bendigo Chinese Association Members. Registrations are essential via Eventbrite as places are limited.
Join us for our community symposium which explores Chinese cultural heritage in the Bendigo region, intergenerational memory and tradition, and the role of imperial dragon Loong in the retention of cultural tradition in Bendigo, Australia.
The symposium will feature dynamic presentations from specialist historians, researchers and conservators as they discuss the history, significance and recent conservation work to preserve Loong, the oldest surviving complete processional dragon in the world.
Golden Dragon Museum won The Archival Survival Award: Small Organisations in the 2022 Victorian Museums and Galleries Awards for the Loong Conservation Project. Grimwade Conservation Services won the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material’s award for Outstanding Conservation Treatment of the Year 2022 also for the Loong Conservation Project.
Collection Care Roadshow
Sunday 5 March, Golden Dragon Museum, 3pm – 5.00pm. Ticketing: Museum entry fees apply. Please pay on arrival. Registrations via Eventbrite are essential as places are strictly limited.
Visit the Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo and meet the University of Melbourne’s conservation team along with Museum collections staff. They will be offering free 15-minute consultations with visitors who bring in their personal collections.
If you or your family have old photos of Bendigo, or the Easter Parade, or special family treasures and would like conservation advice on how to care for these items, please come along. We are especially interested in Chinese heritage items.
No weapons and munitions please.
Please visit www.goldendragonmuseum.org for further information, ticketing and pricing details.
This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 3 March 2023.
