The Suspense is Awful: Tasmania and the Great War

The Suspense is Awful commemorates the role Tasmanians played in World War I and the impact the war had on Tasmanian society.

Drawing from the museum's collections, the exhibition highlights stories previously untold – including those of Tasmanian Aboriginal servicemen and of the men and women who provided medical support on the front line.

Thousands of Tasmanian men and women enlisted to serve in WWI, and by keeping diaries, writing home and collecting souvenirs they created their own memories of the war. Their families found the four years of war awful, as they wondered whether they would ever see their loved ones again.

This exhibition tells the story of their wait – how they grieved, kept themselves busy, helped the war effort, were interned as enemy aliens, argued about conscription, and remembered and made sense of the sacrifices made.