Land of the Beardies History House, Glen Innes, New South Wales, 2010
Archival pigment print
33 × 33 in.
May 12, 2025
The plethora of framed pictures in this hallway is part of the display at Land of the Beardies History House in Australia, and promises to tell you all you could want to know about the history of Glen Innes, a small community in New South Wales. The name “Land of the Beardies” dates back to the first European settlers in the area, bearded squatters who transformed the area into a 19th century mining community with strong ties to their Scottish roots.
This photograph is part of Simone Rosenbauer's Small Museum project, which documents independently run regional museums throughout Australia. Her photographs portray both the objects in the collections, as well as the museum buildings and the caretakers. By documenting these museums and the objects they hold, Rosenbauer examines the way that ideas and memories are preserved by curated collections—a tradition that she herself enters into with this series of photographs, which comprise a collection and a form of conservation in their own right.
