Blackall Cultural Precinct

On the land of the Bidjara People, Blackall, Queensland

The Museum in Blackall’s new Cultural Precinct is designed as a open ended experience, set within a walled garden. This museum landscape is complemented by a master-planned gallery, library, local history room, and storage facilities. It is a space where geology, geography, local history, landscape, and art come together.

Blackall boasts a wealth of valuable historical items and a series of fascinating, interconnected, and untold histories, all of which deserve a dedicated home. The town lies on an established tourist route and is surrounded by regional center’s, each with its own successful tourism attractions. Given these circumstances, the potential value of a public-facing tourist attraction located on Blackall’s Main Street is immense.

Blackall’s location above the Great Artesian Basin makes it a fertile oasis in an otherwise harsh environment. For most of the year, excluding the summer months, the town benefits from a benign climate and its proximity to the Barcoo River, with access to abundant groundwater, the outcome is a landscape of mature tree-lined avenues and lush green parklands. These features create a pleasant outdoor environment for both visitors and locals for much of the year.

The concept for the project is to provide an immersive understanding of Blackall through the experience of a garden museum. In a region known for its arid conditions, Blackall’s temperate climate from autumn through spring, combined with its position above the Great Artesian Basin, offers a unique opportunity for visitors to engage with the town’s history in a garden setting. Here, geology, geography, landscape, and local histories intertwine. The garden museum will be complemented by a gallery, library, and local history room, each defining the edges of the walled landscape.

The range of stories originating in or connected to Blackall is vast. These include Blackall’s unique geology and its relationship with the Great Artesian Basin, its First Nations history and world-unique Indigenous art, the story of the sheep industry and the shearers it sustained, and the commerce that followed. There’s also the history of Australia’s first nationally touring circus—the Perry Brothers Circus, founded on the banks of the Barcoo River in the 1860s. Additional narratives include the impact of the First and Second World Wars on the region, Queensland’s early formation and surveying, the connection to one of Queensland’s early premiers, the legacy of world-champion shearer Jackie Howe and his iconic singlet, the union movement’s origins, and the region’s transition away from sheep farming. Each of these stories is deeply connected to Blackall and to one another.

The garden museum will offer a storytelling experience set within the landscape, where each narrative leads to another, often branching into multiple interconnected threads. This open-ended, “choose-your-own-adventure” approach to experiencing history incorporates physical artifacts, multimedia, written and oral histories, artworks, and the landscape itself.

The museum will include First Nations stories, narratives that resonate with children (such as running away to join the circus), women’s stories (like the matriarch of the Perry Brothers Circus), immigrant stories, and many others. Blackall’s museum will provide opportunities for visitors to connect with the place and its people or, if they prefer, simply rest and reflect in the serene garden setting.

Status: As of January 2025, the project has completed its design development phase and secured $15.9M in funding from the Federal Government to deliver Stage 1.

m3architecture in collaboration with Brian Hooper Architect