By arts editor HELEN MUSA

Opening this weekend, Canberra Museum + Gallery marks the milestone with a new exhibition celebrating Canberra’s first community radio station 2XX and the people who shaped it.

For half a century, 2XX, tagged “People-Powered Radio,” has provided a platform for voices often overlooked by mainstream media, broadcasting everything from political debate and local music to multicultural programming and grass roots activism.

Now, as the station approaches its 50th anniversary, the new exhibition celebrates one of the nation’s longest-running community broadcasters.

2XX People-Powered Radio: Celebrating 50 Years opens this weekend, tracing the station’s history from its beginnings as Radio ANU, broadcasting from two small rooms in The Australian National University’s Drill Hall, to its emergence as 2XX on July 2, 1976.

Over five decades, the station has played a significant role in Canberra’s cultural, social and political life, championing local artists, emerging music and community voices rarely heard elsewhere on the dial.

Long-time broadcaster Declan O’Connell says, “At the height of political activism in the 1970s and ’80s, 2XX was a hub for political organising.”

“We also showcased fantastic local music not heard on the other stations, with bands like Domestic Dirt, the Doug Anthony All Stars, The Gadflys and lots more…While the Canberra community has changed in many ways across the past 50 years, the underlying commitment of 2XX remains the same. 2XX really is community radio for everyone.”

Visitors will be able to step inside a recreated 1970s and 1980s radio studio, listen to broadcasts from across the decades and explore the screen-printed posters that promoted 2XX concerts, events and community campaigns, many produced in collaboration with the Megalo printmaking community.

Senior Curator of Social History for ACT Galleries, Museums and Heritage, Hannah Paddon, says, “2XX’s history is full of people stepping up to the microphone with something urgent, local or personal to share.”

The exhibition, she says, gives 2XX’s history a physical presence, with studio equipment and program guides to posters, photographs and recordings, while also acknowledging some of the challenges faced by the station, including public criticism, licensing disputes and a suspected arson attack on its transmitter in 1988.

All along, however, as ANU’s Woroni noted  in 1977, “2XX is a tool for the public; to express their ideas, views and concepts; to inform, to educate, to give greater opportunity for people to make decisions and take action about matters which are of importance and interest to them.”

2XX People-Powered Radio: Celebrating 50 Years. Canberra Museum + Gallery, June 6 – September 6. Entry is free.