Living Museum of Christmas Island

Dear Christmas Island

An Interactive Photo Exhibit of 1950s-80s CI

Dear Christmas Island is an interactive photo exhibit that took place on Christmas Island in September and October of 2023. Drawing on photographs from the Griffiths-Marsh collection, the exhibit displayed postwar Christmas Island's vibrant social and cultural life in the 1950s-1980s and invited participants, including long-time Islanders, to contribute to the archive by writing memories directly onto envelopes that contained the photographs. A radical experiment in community archiving, this exhibit aimed to prioritize the voices of people who lived this history of unionizing and collective action.

Watch a short behind-the-scenes video of the exhibit setup.

Curatorial Approach

"Dear Christmas Island" consisted of 22 A3-sized envelopes, crafted to resemble letter envelopes, each with a hand-cut document window. Each envelope focused on a pillar of Chrsitmas Island's postwar social and cultural life, like the role of the Jetty in processing arrivals and departures, the cultural important of fishing, or lion dance. Each envelope featured 4-6 original photographs sourced from the Griffiths-Marsh collection or from "CI Crabs," an online community of long-time Islanders, with a caption on the back explaining the context of these photos in Island history.

The exhibit remained open for a week on Christmas Island during Territory Week, a celebration that attracts many long-time Islanders to return to their former home. Visitors were given a pen at the door and encouraged to write on the exhibit.

Read the full curatorial statement to the right.

Public Presentation

I presented the method and results of "Dear Christmas Island" at the 8th Asian Australian Identities Conference in Adelaide, South Australia as part of OzAsia's "In Other Words" festival.

You can access the presentation materials below.



This exhibit was made possible by the support of the Fulbright Association and the Shire of Christmas Island. The results of the exhibit (scanned envelopes) are archived at the Shire of Christmas Island. To learn more or access these archives, please reach out to Director of Governance, Planning, and Policy Chris Su.