Albany comes alive

Albany is the first place in WA where European and Aboriginal people started living side by side. It’s the state’s oldest permanent settlement and home to its first port, both founded in 1826. It was also the final outpost for thousands of ANZACs leaving Australia for the war fields and well before that, it was, and remains, Noongar Menang country.

“Albany 2026 is the story of the whole history of Albany, not about colonialisation and not just one date,” says Albany mayor, Greg Stocks, correcting a common misperception. “It’s about the Menang people, post war migration, a multicultural society and the city now. At the end, we hope to focus on what it looks like moving forward.”

A thread of conscious reconciliation is woven throughout Albany’s bicentenary events calendar. A cultural reference group of Menang elders advised the City of Albany, imbuing the year’s celebrations with respect and acknowledgement. “I hope we’re achieving some sort of unity of our Albany community with a sense of pride, that we’re delivering on a national and international stage,” says the mayor.

Albany 2026’s kick-off event, the 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations, lured some 25,000 people to ANZAC Peace Park above King George Sound. It will finish with thousands of people holding illuminated lanterns on Albany’s sandy shores as drones fly overhead, capturing the spectacle. The free events have already seen a boost in visitor numbers, something to bear in mind when booking accommodation.

“In the first week of the Lighting the Sound installation in March, there were 20,000 visitors to Albany,” says Stocks. While winter is typically a quieter period – normally, some 10,000 visitors are counted - booking ahead is advised for this, especially for long weekends and school holidays. It’s worth calling the Albany Visitor Centre for guidance with stays, activities and up- to-date event information.

Return to country

Important Aboriginal artefacts and original colonial drawings will be returning to Albany for the Kalyagul: Connections to Menang Country exhibition.

It’s the first time these pieces will come home – a lend, for now, but possibly for eventual repatriation. “Artefacts were taken away to museums around the world and a lot of them went to the then-British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland,” says Albany 2026 coordinator, Adam Gregory.

Many were collected in the 1840s by free-settler, Scotsman and historian Robert Neill. With the help of the Menang people, he collected and preserved fish and reptiles, using them to paint life-like representations of them. Neill also created portraits of the Menang, all on show at the Museum of the Great Southern for six months from 4 July.

In June, an evocative soundscape capturing the songs, voices and sounds of Albany will be made available on the albany2026.com.au website. Called Albany Is, it delivers an aural experience of place. Listen in while walking the city’s nature trails or gazing at some 30 portraits of local Menang elders and emerging leaders created for the bicentenary by Denmark-based photographer, Nic Duncan and local elder, Aunty Carol Pettersen. It’s called Binalup Menang: First Light, First People and can be seen from 26 June to 26 July at the Albany Town Hall.

“Something we hear a lot from the Menang community is that there are constantly members passing away or leaving,” says Gregory. “This exhibition is important because we get to capture those people while they’re still around.”

Time travel

While Europeans follow the four seasons of winter, spring, summer and autumn, the Menang-Noongar calendar observes six: beruc, meertilluc, pourner, mawkur, meeringal and maungeron. Seasonal changes across the Great Southern are reflected in another unmissable exhibition called Numen, an audio-visual song cycle.

“Large screen projections show how the land has grown and shifted and morphed and how the weather patterns have changed, from billions of years ago through to now,” says Gregory. “There’s elements of climate change and the voices of the Mengang people carried through to the multicultural community we have today, as well as looking into the future.”

Held for a month, the science-based exhibition by Albany-based artist Peter Morse runs 15 September-15 October at the Albany Town Hall.

Coastal illumination

Imagine a sea of light snaking along the Albany coastline between Emu Point and Ellen Cove. That’s what’s set to occur in November, when the bicentenary’s closing event, Carrying the Fire takes place.

Thousands of lanterns will be made from recycled materials at hundreds of school and community workshops held throughout the year. They’ll be held by participants using mobile phone torches as ‘fire’. “We’ll have a drone taking footage,” says mayor Stocks. “It’ll look like a big wagyl (snake) along the beach line and boardwalk.

It’s a huge coming together of the community.” With it, the bicentennial reins will be handed over to Perth, the next place in WA to mark 200 years, in 2029.

See more at albany2026.com.au