A WOMAN known as a contemporary hero in protecting Australia’s cultural heritage has been named as the winner of the 2016 Bathurst Macquarie Heritage Medal.
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Professor Robyn Sloggett, is the director of the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne, and manages the diverse conservation, teaching and research programs.
She was awarded the prize during the city’s Proclamation Day activities on Saturday.
Professor Sloggett was one of four people short-listed for the award, which was introduced in 2015, and now continues as part of the city’s bicentenary legacy.
The medal recognises an individual who demonstrates a significant contribution to the protection or promotion of Australia’s built, social, cultural or environmental heritage.
Professor Sloggett said it was a wonderful surprise to be announced as the winner. She spent yesterday taking in the city before returning to Melbourne, but said she hopes to be back soon.
“I’m a complete convert to this place,” she said. “And I can’t wait to come back.”
Professor Sloggett said she will use the $25,000 national prize to support students.
“It would be great to get students to engage with Bathurst. You have so many museums and educational opportunities for conservation and heritage, it’s just fantastic,” she said.
Professor Sloggett said she will use the award to drive a broader agenda for heritage and conservation.
“It’s a significant award; it’s only early days but it’s being built on,” she said. She congratulated council on the fact that “it gets heritage”.
“Council gets it, it promotes heritage the way it would promote the car races, they invest in it and connect it to all its marketing and gets the message there all the time,” Professor Sloggett said. “It not often councils do this with such clarity, so I congratulate Bathurst Regional Council on doing it, its something that is certainly worth doing.”
The other short-listed nominees for the award included Christine Johnston, an Honorary Research Fellow with the Cultural Centre for the Asia Pacific at Deakin University; Elizabeth Vines, a specialist
heritage conservation architect; and David Clarke, a volunteer and chair of the Boar at Conservation Volunteers Australia.
Heritage conservation consultant and immediate past chair of the ACT Heritage Council, Duncan Marshall, was the inaugural Macquarie Heritage Medal winner in 2015.
