Artefacts from disasters across the country, including a melted phone booth, are now featuring as part of a National Museum exhibit showcasing the power of nature.
The museum in Canberra has collected images, videos and objects as part of a multi-million-dollar exhibition, Great Southern Land.
A melted phone booth discovered in Cobargo in 2020 in the aftermath of the Black Summer bushfires is one of the striking displays now on permanent show.
"Every time I see it, I have a visceral reaction to it," senior curator Libby Stewart said.
The exhibition aims to explore Australia's connection to land and weather, the effects of climate change and the stories, including those from First Nations people, that come with it.
Other natural disasters with objects collected include Cyclone Tracy, Victoria's Black Saturday bushfires and the Canberra blazes of 2003.
Curators are not actively collecting more objects for the exhibit but are considering gathering historical objects and stories from flood-affected areas, like Lismore, in the future.
"I'm sure, sadly, that we'll probably add to those collections down the track," Ms Stewart said.
"We're really conscious of not walking into communities that have been affected by trauma and are still dealing with that.
"It's very much a two-way process."
A 'macabre' reminder
The display of the "iconic" melted phone booth reinforces the importance of disaster preparedness, according to Cobargo publican Dave Allen.
"It is a macabre reminder, but it's got to be kept front of mind," he said.
The impact of Black Summer remains prevalent more than two-and-a-half years on, with some residents still trying to rebuild their homes, while others continue to process the trauma.
The NSW Bushfires Coronial Inquiry continues to examine the death and destruction that came from the 2019-20 bushfire season, while the flooding disaster that impacted the state's north remains the subject of its own parliamentary inquiry.
Mr Allen said the response and recovery to the northern NSW flooding disaster was "virtually a carbon copy" of what he experienced during Black Summer.
He said the exhibition evoked a fear that history would continue to repeat itself unless communities and governments became more resilient to natural disasters and addressed climate change.
"We haven't learnt enough, we haven't done enough and we haven't readied ourselves enough to be prepared for the next one because the similarity with Lismore was scary," he said.
"From someone whose been through it, seen it, and some poor bastard up there is going through the same thing, it's just nuts."
