TWO of the Australian War Memorial’s World War I galleries closed this week for a major refurbishment, while a new Afghanistan exhibition opens later this year.

The Sinai-Palestine and Western Front galleries are closed from this week while the $32 million project takes place, until the two new galleries open early in 2015.

The Gallipoli gallery will remain open until June and later this year, a temporary “ANZAC Voices” exhibition will open until the work is complete.

Australian War Memorial director Dr Brendan Nelson says the new galleries will feature interactive technology and “deliver something very special” during the Centenary of World War I, which was fought between 1914 and 1918.

“Our new First World War galleries will draw on a range of new interactive technologies that will take the Memorial far beyond the Centenary,” Dr Nelson says. “The refurbishment will place the Memorial’s galleries at the forefront of Australia’s Centenary program.”

A new exhibition covering the experience of all three services over more than a decade in Afghanistan will open later this year in the lower level of the Memorial, where the Online Gallery is currently located.

“This exhibition will allow current-day veterans to feel confident that their stories are being told for today’s generation, and that their extraordinary efforts on behalf of all Australians will never be forgotten,” says Dr Nelson.

The new Afghanistan exhibition will encompass the entire Middle East Area of Operations and portray the experiences of Australians from the Army, Navy and Air Force in training Afghan soldiers, countering the threat of improvised explosive devices and building bridges, schools and other infrastructure.