Despite lockdowns and uncertainty, we've managed to bring you six new exhibitions this year, including the National Archives of Australia's, Out of This World: Australia in the space age, and Cleverman from ACMI, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

Closer to home, we started the year with Pollinators, an absolutely stunning display of artworks by close to 3000 local public primary school students.

This partnership between the Orange Regional Museum, Orange Regional Gallery and the SPARKE Learning Network included an environmental education and art-making program exploring our unique local pollinators and the crucial role they play.

Who could forget the mass of wings that adorned our exhibition space, or the many children who came to the museum to find their artworks among the swarm?

This exhibition, along with our long-term local history exhibition, Inherit, was also the backdrop for the Orange Chamber Music Festival's Music at the Museum evening, a rare chance on a year of restrictions to celebrate music, history and art together.

In May we brought you Pat Ford: Pride of Orange, a celebration of one of Orange's best loved sporting heroes.

We had so much positive feedback that we turned the exhibition into a book. There's still a chance to grab a copy before Christmas too. Just pop into the Orange Visitor Information Centre or Collins Booksellers Orange.

The Pat Ford exhibition was followed by our 2021 NAIDOC Week show, Heal Country! This display is up until March 2022 and well worth a visit to learn more about the importance of country and our outstanding local Indigenous-led land regeneration and environmental education programs.

And last-but-not-least, our latest exhibition Child's Play: Growing up in Orange in the 1950s and 1960s has proven incredibly popular.

Featuring more than 80 images from the Central Western Daily Negative Collection, this collaboration with the Orange & District Historical Society was curated by local historian, Elisabeth Edwards, and is a must-see over the summer holidays for locals and visitors alike.

As well as exhibitions, the museum has continued to hold its Monday's at the museum program featuring hands-on activities for three-five year olds, delivered school holiday programs in person and online, presented fascinating speakers as part of our ORM Talks series and free Educators Evenings, plus Curator Conversations and special tours.

We also accessioned 184 new objects into our growing collection, including a very apt postcard for this time of year, featuring hundreds of local children attending a Christmas party at The Strand Theatre in 1940.

From everyone at the Orange Regional Museum, we wish you a wonderful holiday season and look forward to bringing you more great exhibitions and programs in 2022.

Orange Regional Museum is open 9am - 4pm daily (except December 25). Entry is free.