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IMAGE OF CHILDREN: GLENDA LEWIN; ALL OTHERS: CHRISSIE GOLDRICK; ILLUSTRATION COURTESY WAMA

Wild inspiration


An ambitious vision for a unique museum will see the Grampians


region of Victoria become a centre of natural history art.


Leading light. Peter Voice is a renowned
wildlife artist and co-founder of the Wildlife Art
Museum of Australia, along with Glenda Lewin.

Elevated vision. An architect’s drawing of WAMA’s
$22 million facility, which will have 100sq.m of
exhibition space, a library of rare books, an external
theatrette and an interpretive education centre.


W


HEN IT COMES to art
museums, four-letter
acronyms abound. Think
MOMA in New York, or closer to
home the phenomenal MONA in
Hobart, or Brisbane’s popular GOMA.
Now a group of passionate wildlife-art
lovers in western Victoria is hoping to
add WAMA to that roll call of globally
signifi cant cultural institutions.
According to the project’s patron,
Glenda Lewin, a Wildlife Art Museum
of Australia (WAMA) is critical in our
increasingly urbanised and technologi-
cally dependent era. “The timing is
perfect for a museum that will focus
on a rediscovery of the relationship
between humans and their natural
physical surroundings, raising aware-
ness of our environment and how it
has inspired artists from cave-dwellers
to the present day,” she says.
The proposed museum aims to
celebrate the relationship between art,
science and nature, and will explore
art’s role in awakening us to the world


in which we live. The idea was born
out of an encounter between Glenda
and wildlife artist Peter Voice in 2010
after art enthusiast Glenda returned
to her native home town of Stawell
after 30 years overseas. While living
in the UK she had become involved
with the Artists for Nature Founda-
tion, which focuses attention on

fragile habitats and endangered fl ora
and fauna through the creative output
of renowned artists.
Glenda identifi ed an opportunity
to harness the creativity of the
numerous artists living around
the Grampians for the benefi t of the
environment. Together, Peter and
Glenda established the Grampians
Wildlife Art Society (GWAS) with a
view to holding an annual exhibition
and occasional workshops, but it
quickly escalated to embrace a much
more ambitious vision. They used
the art society to measure the interest
in a bigger concept, says Peter, who
believes Australia is the rightful
place for such a museum.
“It became clear that there’s a huge
gap in the way the history of our
relationship with our environment
is represented,” he says. “There’s a
chronological parallel between the
European discovery of Australia
and humanity’s exploration of the
environment. The strange and

WAMA MELBOURNE

VICTORIA

36 Australian Geographic

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