David Gist is an Acquisitions Officer at the Australian War Memorial, the most recent position in a career spanning a broad range of fields in the museums sector. This began with studies in anthropology, where he found himself studying Tibetan Buddhist art in north India during the 1990s. His employment at the War Memorial, which commenced in 2006, has seen him do just about everything – from climbing into the building’s iconic dome with lighting designers, to delivering exhibition floor talks, to guiding members of Federal Parliament in cleaning the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. His publications are likewise on wide-ranging subjects, from the carnage shown in x-rays from the First World War, to Zippo cigarette lighters from the conflict in Vietnam. He worked as an Assistant Curator during the hugely popular Remember me exhibition of images taken from glass-plate negatives from the First World War, discovered in the French village of Vignacourt. His subsequent curatorial role focused on identifying soldiers in this collection of images, based on enquiries from members of the public. The close consideration of images that this role demanded sparked his interest in portraiture.
