30 April 2026
The 2026 Victorian Museums and Galleries Awards were announced at a gala ceremony held on Tuesday 28 April at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. Now celebrating their 32nd year, the Awards acknowledge and highlight outstanding achievements across the museum, gallery and community collecting sector.
Delivered in partnership by Australian Museums and Galleries Association Victoria (AMaGA Victoria) and Public Galleries Association of Victoria (PGAV) the 2026 Awards received more than 70 nominations, showcasing the remarkable range and quality of projects delivered by Victoria's museums, galleries and community collecting organisations.
The winner of the Small Project of the Year category was the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) in partnership with Heritage Victoria for the Traces of Girlhood exhibition.
About Traces of Girlhood
Traces of Girlhood was exhibited at Como House in 2024. The exhibition explored the overlooked lives of girls and young women in Victoria’s history. It gathered things that girls had left behind including handiwork, scrapbooks, writing, clothing, and toys. Heritage Victoria’s archaeology collection was used to tell many of the stories featured in the exhibition. The exhibition explored the lives of 13 girls from diverse backgrounds with untold stories and showed how their varied experiences were shaped by race, ethnicity, indigeneity, class, religion, health, wealth and geography.
The curators of the exhibition included Dr Catherine Gay (Historian and curator), Anne-Louise Muir (Heritage Victoria), Dr Sarah Sato (Community Heritage, Yarra Ranges Regional Museum) and Maddison Miller (Lecturer in Ecological Knowledges, University of Melbourne).
The judges commented that:
“[The project] celebrated the filling of historical voids through close collaboration and the platforming of other voices. Accomplished on a limited budget, this project has genuine heart. Its creative use of 'mundane' objects brings significant artefacts into context and honours lives with care and respect. The donation of the artworks represents lasting impact for the Dja Dja Wurrung community — a meaningful demonstration of genuine engagement and enduring legacy”.
Page last updated: 05/05/26