Sarah Craig began as an intern at the Hellenic Museum back in 2014 while she was doing her Master of Arts in Curatorship at Melbourne University.
“The Hellenic Museum was one of the only places that I could find a great collection of Greek antiquities because my background is in archaeology”, she told SBS Greek.
In 2015 she started working for the museum as a curator and five years later she became the first museum director on a non-Greek background.
“I consider myself as a Philhellene. Greek history and contemporary culture are a great passion of mine”, Ms. Craig says.
She feels comfortably placed there to be able to take the museum “in a really new and exciting direction that honors Greek culture”.
Hippolyta, by Pichiavo. Source: Hellenic Museum Melbourne
She was asked whether the purpose of the museum is to promote the Greek culture, or should the institution promote the work of established and emerging Greek-Australian artists.
“It is a combination. Part of what I love about ancient Greece is the part of intellectual and philosophical curiosity and the way in which Greeks reached out to the world and paved the way for a kind of scientific thinking around the world”.
Ms. Craig says that the museum works also as “an intercultural knowledge sharing point”, which is the kind of key point to her rather “than sticking within geographical borders”.
Valentina Bydanova, one of the educators of the Hellenic Museum. Source: Hellenic Museum Melbourne
Hellenic Museum Melbourne. Source: Hellenic Museum Melbourne
“Any culture is much wider than the place that is spaced so I'm certainly looking to reach outwards but also forward and embracing the contemporary culture and contemporary artists”.
“This is something that we have been doing to a degree in the past but I certainly looking to ramp it up in the future”.
For the post-COVID-19-era, Hellenic Museum’s direct says that the beauty about the museums is that they are evolving in the same way that most institutions are.
“They are digitally embracing multiple platforms and engage more and more”.
“In the next year or so, we're all about creating moments to connect, explore, grow, and collaborate both in Australia and internationally”, Ms. Craig told SBS Greek.
The museum is looking more deeply into its kids’ engagement programs through Argonauts club”.
“We're hoping to get some kind of ‘Argo TV’ and more exciting and dynamic programs that we can deliver to children of school age”.
One of the museum's goals is also to digitize its collection.
“If we do end up in another situation when we are unable to have visitors, people can actually engage more interestingly with our collections”, Ms. Craig says.
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