University of Melbourne = username 128.250.144.147 = IP address Wed, 15 Aug 2012 06:36:59 = Date & Time Environment and History 18 (2012): 423–445 © 2012 The White Horse Press. doi: 10.3197/096734012X13400389809418 Exhibiting Environmental History: The Challenge of Representing Nation JILLIAN WALLISS Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning The University of Melbourne Victoria 3010 Australia Email: jwalliss@unimelb.edu.au ABSTRACT Some environmental scholars argue that environmental history makes sense on a regional or global scale but rarely on a national one. This essay explores this claim in the context of two national museums: the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (1998) and the National Museum of Australia (2001). It explores how the imperative to be representative of the nation inluenced the opening-day displays of environmental history. I argue that a national framing produced two signiicant challenges. At the National Museum of Australia, the ‘Tangled Destinies’ exhibition not only struggled with the impossible scope of presenting a nation that encompasses an entire continent but also the reconcili- ation of the temporal disparities of deep time, indigenous and non-indigenous histories. Conversely at Te Papa, a disjuncture between a national landscape identity predicated on purity and the scientiic reality of rapid and extensive environmental modiication post-settlement, was inluential in the decision to omit the environmental history display from the opening-day programme. KEYWORDS Interdisciplinarity, exhibition, museums, post-colonialism