UNSHACKLED

Australia’s Premier Convict Exhibition

Experience the award-winning digital exhibition revealing the untold story of 160,000 convicts who shaped Australia's democracy and identity.

A Story of Resilience, Resistance and Transformation

UNSHACKLED reveals the true story of Australia's 160,000 transported convicts. Not as victims, but as workers, resistors and democracy builders who shaped the nation we know today.

Many were assigned to private estates like Woolmers, where they learned trades, built colonial Tasmania, earned their freedom and often chose to stay. Among them were 3,600+ political prisoners - Irish rebels, Scottish radicals, Tolpuddle Martyrs and workers who fought for democratic rights.

This is Australia's great foundational story. And you can experience it here, at one of Tasmania's two UNESCO World Heritage convict estates where the Assignment System actually happened.

What You'll Experience

Augmented Reality Encounters

Point your device at convict portraits and watch them come alive. Hear their stories in their own words. Meet the political prisoners, the workers, the rebels who shaped Australian democracy.

40+ Video Documentaries

Discover individual convict stories through evocative video vignettes. Personal narratives that reveal the human faces behind the overwhelming statistics of transportation.

Immersive Digital Installations

Large-scale projections, original soundscapes and animated portraits create a multi-sensory journey. Dynamic fusion of film, sound and historical imagery brings the convict era vividly to life.

Traditional Museum Elements

View rare artefacts and objects from the convict era, expertly curated alongside innovative digital storytelling.

Interactive Screen-Based Media

Explore surprising, moving and immersive displays that blend rigorous scholarship with engaging design. Touch, discover and connect with stories spanning themes of repression, exploitation, rebellion and redemption.

Why UNSHACKLED at Woolmers Estate?

UNSHACKLED has found its semi-permanent home at Woolmers Estate because this is where the Assignment System story actually happened.

For 60 years, assigned convicts worked this land, lived in these cottages, learned trades in the blacksmith shop and helped build colonial Tasmania. This isn't a reconstruction. These are the actual 18 original buildings where convicts gained skills, earned wages and shaped their futures.

The exhibition transforms how you experience Woolmers. Walk through the Free Settlers' Cottages where assigned workers lived. Stand in the Blacksmith Shop where they learned trades. Explore the grounds they cultivated. Then use the UNSHACKLED digital experience to meet the individuals who actually lived these stories.

This combination of authentic place and innovative storytelling creates something unique: a fully immersive journey into Australia's true convict foundations.

Created by Leading Experts

UNSHACKLED is the result of a four-year collaboration involving:

  • Academics and historians from 10 Australian and international universities

  • Digital History Tasmania led by Professor Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Emeritus Professor Lucy Frost, two of Australia's most revered convict historians

  • Award-winning design team combining architectural sensitivity with experiential innovation

  • Visual artists, filmmakers, animators and creative technologists creating cutting-edge digital experiences

  • Musicians, poets and songwriters crafting original soundscapes

  • Museum specialists ensuring rigorous curatorial standards

The result melds traditional museum presentation with engaging digital storytelling to create an experience that's surprising, immersive and moving.

What Scholars Say

"UNSHACKLED overturns outdated views of convicts as helpless victims, instead revealing them as people of agency, resilience and influence. Transportation is reframed not as a tale of shame, but as one of Australia's great untold foundational stories of survival, resistance and transformation."

Professor Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, Digital History Tasmania

"With more than one in five Australians descended from convicts, these histories are both deeply personal and profoundly national. This exhibition helps us understand the struggles, resilience and influence of the transported, and how they continue to shape debates about freedom, fairness and identity."

Professor Tony Moore, Conviction Politics ARC Research Project, Monash University

Plan Your Visit

All General Admission tickets Include UNSHACKLED digital experience, access to 18 original convict-era buildings, the National Rose Garden (in bloom October-February), and the full Woolmers Estate grounds.

General Admission:

  • Adult: $39

  • Concession: $35

  • Child (5-15 years): $15

  • Under 5: Free

  • Family (2 Adults + 3 Children): $83

  • Tasmanian Residents: FREE entry when accompanying interstate or international guests

Guided House Tour

Add-On: +$10

50-minute intimate tour through Woolmers House interior with passionate volunteer guides who bring six generations of Archer family history to life.

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