Curating Australia for the centenary of Federation

Does National Identity Matter? In a year that sees the commemoration of 100 years of Australian 'nationhood', the various cultural events on offer would appear to suggest that yes, it does matter, at the very least in the sense that national identity is still being actively constructed by officially sponsored cultural institutions. From the 1 January 2001 federation parade, with its floats designed to capture the essence of Australian experience, to community projects intended to raise consciousness of national history and civic life, to a major exhibition charged to 'tell the story of an entire century through the visual arts' (Hollingsworth, 2000, p. 8), the government-sponsored National Council for the Centenary of Federation has bankrolled a broad spectrum of events with the express objective of formulating a sense of what it means to be Australian, to give the people themselves, in a recognizable package. In this paper I want to focus on the role of the major officially endorsed exhibition Federation: Australian Art and Society 1901-2001 in the ongoing construction of national identity.