About the Documents and Artefacts collection

The NFSA preserves documents and artefacts that tell the stories behind Australian audiovisual industries and culture. Objects in our collection may be constructed of fabric, paper, plastic, metal or glass. Many of them – like theatre tickets, posters or flyers – were assumed to be ephemeral documents when they were made. Now they help give us valuable insights into the act of creation and take us on a journey through decades of Australian film, sound and broadcast history.

Documents and artefacts collected include:

• National and international film posters, lobby cards and concert and festival posters
• Photographs from Australian and international film, television, radio and recorded sound
• 10,000 glass slides including cinema slides, song slides and theatre advertisements
• Costumes like Johnny O’Keefe’s coat, t-shirts worn by The Wiggles and the Oscar-winning creations from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
• Artefacts like props from television and film sets, promotional materials and equipment representing more than a century of audiovisual technology (such as pre-cinema magic lanterns, gramophones, radio and television sets, and cameras)
• Manuscripts including scripts, scrapbooks, promotional materials, designs, speeches and the personal papers of individuals (like Rolf de Heer, Peter Luck and Martha Ansara) and organisations (like Crawford Productions).

You can see more documents and artefacts in our Collection stories and Curated collections.

If you have documents or artefacts that you wish to offer the NFSA, please see the Collection offers page.