Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG)

The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) is one of the oldest museums in Australia and has its origins in the collections of Australia’s oldest scientific society, the Royal Society of Tasmania, established in 1843.

Located on Hobart’s historic waterfront, Tasmania’s state museum is home to a diverse collection of treasures spanning art, history and science that are the starting point for telling unique Tasmanian stories. TMAG is widely recognised as the pre-eminent Antarctic collecting institution in Australia with the broadest collection of Antarctic material on display.

The museum is often the closest visitors will get to the frozen southern continent, thanks to the large interactive gallery Islands to Ice: the Great Southern Ocean and Antarctica, the state’s major Antarctic exhibition.

Out the window visitors can glimpse Australian, French and Chinese Antarctic supply ships, and inside they can discover the history and science of this remarkable region, including the oldest known Antarctic sled, penguins and real ice cores.

Islands to Ice examines the definitions, perceptions and mythology of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. It explores the places, the people, the creatures and the phenomena that make the great southern wilderness a world of its own.