The Remembrance Trail: Wedderburn, Mysia, Boort

Combining outstanding exhibitions with much-loved historic venues, this unique tour will fill your heart and soul, with poignant memories, startling reminders and beautiful responses to wars that tore into families and communities.

The focus of the tour is Wedderburn, Loddon shire’s administrative centre. In collaboration with the Australian National Veteran Arts Museum in Melbourne, Arts Trail presents The Unknown Widow, an interactive installation by Navy veteran Sacha de Wit, which recalls the epitaphs written by families faced with the death of their young people who died in service in World War I. The Mechanics Institute, full of history, is the perfect venue for this extraordinary exhibition. And it’s complemented by an installation in the same building, called Our Forgotten Dead, where father and son printmakers Lawrence and Riley Finn, with imagery and video, capture their own family’s war legacy, within wave after wave of conflict and loss. History beautifully embedded in stunning and evocative imagery. We thank Wedderburn Korong Vale RSL, as well as the Hall committee, for supporting this important event.

Down the road from the Mechanics Institute, the Historic Records Museum has just moved into the old Court House, so we’re celebrating this new start with them. As well as a digital and print display of their magnificent collection of historical photographs, Debra Parry from Melbourne Restorations will be in the Museum, talking about the important work of restoring photos and old objects, showing how it’s done, and on hand to be consulted if you have a query about something you’d love to preserve.

You want more memories!! No visit to Wedderburn is complete without The Coach House Gallery, maintained as a museum that is chock-a-block with memorabilia, but also Loddon’s lovely space for art exhibitions. Local artists Barb Petrie and Jude Raftis are on show for the Trail.

Then, something very special indeed: turn down the road towards Boort, and, 30ks along, you’ll come to Mysia, once bustling, now a small cluster of buildings including the War Memorial School. Haunting, packed with memories, thrumming with the sound of past voices, Mysia’s War Memorial School is cared for by a dedicated group of volunteers, who are welcoming an exhibition by Castlemaine artist, Clayton Tremlett, called Immortals. Coming to Mysia from Melbourne’s War Memorial, this exhibition, in this location, will be peerless. Look again at the faces of the fallen soldiers who stand on plinths absolutely everywhere across Australia’s regions.

From Mysia, it’s only 15k on to Boort, where there are five different exhibitions to see: a big show by Boort artists in the Memorial Hall, Sophia Piccoli’s solo exhibition in Godfrey Street (that’s the one with the famous Godfrey and Bear cafe), a must-see double-show by Natham Sims and Sarah Wallace-Smith, Hidden in Plain Sight, at the James Boyle Hall, plus exhibitions in both of Boort’s admired tourist attractions, the Spanner Garden in Barraport and Yung Balug on the road towards Pyramid Hill.

Way too much for one day? Well, that’s why there are three!!!