PEOPLE CENTRED HERITAGE // DR ANDREW SNEDDON

“What I’ve learned from cultural heritage management is that people are amazing – they’re endlessly creative, endlessly inventive, and even in the grind of everyday life, they find time to make beautiful things. Working in these beautiful places gives me a sense of joy and privilege, and an opportunity to share them with future generations.” – Andrew Sneddon

Extent Heritage Director Dr Andrew Sneddon is a Queenslander, and though he’s worked in some of the country’s greatest landmarks, he always comes home.

Brisbane, he says, was never the grand capital that Melbourne and Sydney were, but is still full of stories. “I think Queenslanders are a little bit too modest about our own history,” he says. “As a local boy, I like telling local stories, reminding Queenslanders of the achievements of their forebears, both Indigenous and otherwise.”

For Andrew, the banks of the Brisbane River are at the heart of the city’s history. They have been home to its Traditional Owners for millennia. In the mid-nineteenth century, it was where tall ships brought their imports to the burgeoning city’s warehouses. And it was where three men lost their lives constructing the Story Bridge in the 1930s.
“It's millions of little stories, that on their own don’t mean much, but when taken together tell a grand story,” says Andrew. “It’s the greatest show on Earth. And the beauty of it is that the story keeps getting bigger and longer, because we keep writing new chapters.”

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