When a mains water pipe burst, flooding the basement level of Museums Victoria’s off-site storage facility in the inner-Melbourne suburb of Coburg last November, the rising water surged with such force that the facility’s doors were pried open, sending an assortment of small fossils, core samples and replica dinosaur bones spilling out onto surrounding streets.
But while the facility’s neighbours, including the ABC radio announcer Sammy J, managed to retrieve several items that had congregated in the gutters of surrounding streets, dozens more artefacts were washed underground into Melbourne’s extensive rainwater drain network.
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Fortunately for the museum, the Cave Clan, a clandestine underground exploration group that formed in Melbourne in 1986, had been keeping a watchful eye on the incident.
Sharing news of the flood in a private chat on social media, Alien, a member who goes by an alias to protect their identity, tells The Art Newspaper via email the reports of missing museum objects were a “classic call to adventure”.
