Five Questions with a Museum Director (Part 2)

Five Questions

Director of Newcastle Museum, Julie Baird, is asked five questions by Sancta's Academic Head for Arts & Social Sciences, Sarah O'Keefe.
Julie Baird has over 30 years of professional experience in the museum sector. She began working in Canadian museums in the 1990s focusing on textile collections of medium to large regional museums. Ms Baird returned to Australia and joined the National Motor Museum in South Australia in 1998. Since 2002 she has been at Newcastle Museum and was part of the small team who moved and redeveloped the museum which re-opened in its new site in 2011. She is now the Director of Newcastle Museum.
The intersection of innovation and accessibility has been a strong theme in Ms Baird’s major contributions to the museum sector. Ms Baird’s experience in researching and interpreting and working with community has also resulted in a number of successful and award-winning permanent exhibitions, including the redesign and redevelopment of the Newcastle Museum's social history galleries.
Her career focus has been to spread knowledge about history and museums in unusual or popularised forums, working with communities as broad as embroidery guilds and TV audiences to female prisoners and bikie clubs. Julie sits on the Artform Assessment Board Museums and History for Create NSW, has been a standards assessor for Museums & Galleries NSW and is the current Vice President of the Australian Museums & Art Galleries Association.
This episode was recorded on the land of the Gadigal, Awabakal and Worimi peoples and we pay our respects to Elders past and present. We acknowledge the Country you are joining us from and pay our respects to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander People who are listening.
Follow Sancta Sophia College on Instagram @SanctaSophiaSyd and Facebook. Visit sancta.edu.au/fivequestions for more information.
This episode was produced, mixed and edited by Hayden Edwards and Mia Trinidad, and hosted by Sarah O'Keefe.