Corioli Souter is head of the Maritime Heritage department at Western Australian Museum, working out of the WA Maritime Museum site in Fremantle, Western Australia. She took on this role in October 2022 and was previously the curator of the museum’s department of Maritime Archaeology for 15 years, following ten years as assistant curator in the same section.
Souter is passionate about maritime expeditions in the Indian Ocean and is an expert diver. She has curated many exhibitions in both Western Australia and Indonesia and in 2022 she spoke at a workshop during the AMaGA conference in Perth. She explained the protocol that she follows when building an exhibition and stressed the key role of the objects of the collection: “Start with the object and find a connection with the local audience”.
She also pointed out the emotional component of the object and the key role of storytelling to build a relevant dialogue with the audience.
In an interview with WA Museum about her career, published on the organisation’s website in 2018, she said:
“I have been very fortunate to have worked throughout Australia as well as overseas on an extraordinary variety of sites ranging from an Archaic Period Greek shipwreck in Turkey through to World War Two merchant vessels in Micronesia. Similarly, I have also been involved in a number of coastal excavations working with traditional owners and university collaborators.
“More recently, after the birth of my son, I have slowed down on fieldwork commitments and devoted more time to developing exhibitions. Channelling the results of my profession into exhibitions has enabled me to become a storyteller as well.”
The Western Australian Museum has six main sites. The state museum, now known as WA Museum Boola Bardip officially re-opened on 21 November 2020. Alongside this venue and the WA Maritime Museum, the organisation is also responsible for the WA Shipwrecks Museum, also in Fremantle, the Museum of the Great Southern in Albany, the Museum of Geraldton in Geraldton, and the Museum of the Goldfields in Kalgoorlie-Boulder.