Oral History WA News Bulletin (July 2026)

Welcome to the July 2026 news bulletin. Nominations for the 2026 OHA Awards close at the end of this month, our next Introductory training day is locked in for August, and there’s a great line-up of exhibitions and events for anyone interested in Aboriginal oral history and memory. Read on for all the latest from OHWA and the wider oral history community.

Upcoming Oral History Training

Introductory Oral History Workshop, Saturday 29 August

Our next Introductory Training opportunity is Saturday 29 August at the State Library WA. This one-day workshop is ideal for those who are new to oral history and want to know more about what is involved. The workshop is also useful for librarians who are working with oral history archives, and would like an insight into the interviewing side of things.

• Time: 10:15am (for 10:30am start) to 3:30pm
• Venue: Geographe Room, State Library of WA
• Cost: $80 non-members / $50 members

The morning session focuses on oral history ethics, while the afternoon session is all about the practicalities of interviewing. Participants will have the opportunity to conduct a practice interview.

Alison Atkinson-Phillips is the president of Oral History WA and vice president of Oral History Australia. Alison is an experienced oral historian and the author of Survivor Memorials: Remembering Trauma and Loss in Contemporary Australia, based on her oral history work with memory activists.

Janet Baldwin is a past president of OHWA with 21 years of experience in oral history: teaching, interviewing, transcribing and managing projects. Her clients include: State Library WA, WA Shires and Councils, Perth Observatory, Spiritualist women. Janet is the author of: Telescopes, Timekeeping and Teabag Jigglers and Out and About with Artemis at Perth Observatory, both based on oral history.

Cate Pattison has worked as a social and oral historian since 2013 for a range of public and private clients, presenting and publishing her work at national and international Oral History conferences and journals. Cate’s previous career was in media and market research, and she now also works as a heritage officer for the Royal Agricultural Society. Forthcoming publication: Gearing up the Groupies: The State Implement Works and Group Settlement in Western Australia in the 1920s and 1930s.

OHA 2026 Awards Nominations Extended to 31 August

Nominations and applications are still being accepted for the 2026 Oral History Australia Awards. Winners will be announced at the OHA Biennial Conference in Adelaide from 3–6 December. Online forms are available for all three awards.

Hazel de Berg Award for Excellence in Oral History

This lifetime achievement award is named after Hazel de Berg, one of Australia’s pioneering and most prolific oral historians, who recorded just over 1,300 interviews during her lifetime. The award is in its 20th year, having first been introduced in 2006: https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/awards/awards-hazel-de-berg/

OHA Book Award

To be eligible for the 2026 Book Award, the book must have been published between 1 September 2024 and 31 July 2026.

Available to an oral history production in any media other than a book. To be eligible, the production must have been produced, published, exhibited or performed between 1 September 2024 and 31 July 2026.
Apply for the Media Award

Oral History Australia and Oral History Australia SA/NT will present the 2026 OHA Biennial Conference at the University of Adelaide, on Kaurna Country, from 3–6 December. The theme is very timely given rapidly advancing technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Keynote speaker Professor Doug Boyd is Director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries and a recent president of the Oral History Association. Boyd envisioned, designed and implemented OHMS, the open-source system that synchronises text with audio and video online, and is the author of Oral History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2025).

Concession rates will be available for members of OHA state associations and NOHANZ.
Conference details: https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/biennial-conference-2026/

Join us online for our regular member sharing event, held the first Friday of every month, 12noon–1:00pm via Teams. Hear what other members are doing, share your latest project, and get advice from the OHWA Committee and experienced practitioners. BYO lunch and a cuppa.

Upcoming dates: Friday 7 August, Friday 4 September, Friday 6 November

Email contact@oralhistorywa.org.au for the Teams link

Join Dr Barbara Lemon, Bronwyn Ryan and Dr Scott McKinnon from the National Library’s oral history team as they reflect on compiling the extraordinary Australian COVID-19 oral history collection. From 2023 to 2025, the Library undertook a major project to document Australian experiences of the pandemic through 260 interviews, travelling to every state and territory.

Thursday 6 August, 12:30–1:30pm. Free — attend in person at the Library in Canberra, or watch online via livestream. Book now (discounts for OHWA members)

State Library of Western Australia. An immersive exhibition centred around newly recorded video oral histories of Menang Elders and a large-scale visual meditation on the Kinjarling/Albany landscape. Marking 200 years since colonisation began on Menang Country, the exhibition asks visitors to encounter Kinjarling not as a backdrop to history, but as a living landscape with its own voice and memory.
Runs 18 May 2026 – 4 April 2027. Free, no tickets required.

Kalyagul: Connections to Menang Country

Museum of the Great Southern, Albany. This landmark exhibition celebrates Menang people’s profound connections to the land, sea and skies of Albany, and their crucial role in shaping how the region’s natural world was explored and understood. In the 1840s, Menang people shared their kaartdijin (knowledge) with early visitors and researchers — collaborations that informed a remarkable body of scientific paintings and portraits. This material now returns home to Albany for the first time, uniting international and interstate collections with Western Australian Museum objects and local artefacts. Runs 4 July 2026 – 21 February 2027.

Biennial conference of the National Oral History Association of New Zealand. Theme: Tūranga | Places we belong. https://oralhistoryaustralia.org.au/events/nohanz-conference-2026/

12:30–2:30pm, State Library of WA. The business meeting will be followed by short preview papers from members presenting at the OHA Biennial Conference in Adelaide.

A reminder that the John Ferrell Travel Fund is available to support members with the travel costs associated with oral history interviewing. Small grants of between $200–$500 can be accessed throughout the year, up to a total of $1,000. Please visit https://oralhistorywa.org.au/membership/john-ferrell-travel-fund/ contact OHWA at contact@oralhistorywa.org.au to request your application form.

Call for stories

Do you have an oral history project underway, or recently completed? We would love to be able to share news with members, to celebrate the oral history work that is happening around our state.

If you have a story to share, please email contact@oralhistorywa.org.au.