Monthly Archive for October, 2009

Movember

Published by Erika Dicker 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

 95_28_53 April Photography Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved

Yes, it’s that time of year again…Movember! This annual charity event is responsible for handlebar and Fu Manchu moustaches around Australia, and indeed the world, each November. Originating in Melbourne in 2003, Movember aims to promote awareness and raises much-needed funds for men’s health issues, with a focus on prostate cancer and depression.

The first rule of Movember is to obviously begin the month with a clean-shaven face. One of the more interesting A-category objects in our collection comprises two folding cut-throat razors owned by John Fletcher Hargrave, father of aviation pioneer Lawrence Hargrave.
00537397Photography Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved

The blades are made from a section of recycled iron salvaged from one of the piles of old London Bridge, reputedly driven into the bed of the River Thames by King William Rufus in 1100. The use of iron shoes to manufacture items such as razor blades, tools and surgical instruments was quite common after the old London Bridge was demolished in 1830.

Given to J.F. Hargrave by his father at sixteen years of age, the razors are accompanied by a handmade silk bag and an envelope on which the provenance of the blades is handwritten.

The blades are significant due to their association with Lawrence Hargrave. The blades were passed to him upon his father’s death in 1885 and were kept in the family until they were kindly donated to the Powerhouse Museum by Mrs Helen Gray, Lawrence’s eldest daughter, in 1963.

So, at the end of the month when the Man of Movember has been crowned and the Tom Selleck wannabes go home, I’m sure a set like this will come in handy.

Kate Scott
Registrar

Early solar car

Published by Margaret Simpson 0 Comments Tags: , , .

solarcar0Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved.

Solar car racing is not new. The Powerhouse Museum has one of the cars that competed in the world’s first transcontinental solar car race, then called the Pentax World Solar Challenge, in 1987. Ours, dubbed Solar Resource, was designed and built by a small team of Sydney engineers headed by Ian Landon Smith in the garage of a North Shore home. Imagine what the locals thought when they took it out for a test drive back in the 80s!

The car managed to average 25.64 km/hr over the 3,000 km race from Darwin to Adelaide. The entrants in the current race are cruising at something like 90 km/hr and can go up to 140 km/hr. Although state-of-the-art at the time, Solar Resource has electro-mechanical control and is really pretty primitive by today’s standards. Solar Resource came first in the private entry class and 7th overall out of a field of 24 starters – but only 11 finished the race.

You don’t have to travel to Adelaide to see a solar car. Ours is on display in the Museum’s Transport exhibition, so come in and check out the 760 solar cells on the fibreglass and Kevlar body and contemplate how far we’ve come in 22 years.

solarcar1Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved.

Death in the Museum- part two- the crematorium

Published by Charles Pickett 3 Comments Tags: , , , , .

0022254Photography by Andrew Frolows © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.

In the first contribution to Death in the Museum, Erika wrote: ‘coffins have traditionally been made to protect the body, and thus been made out of strong materials such as steel and hardwood’.

It is interesting that this practice survives because most coffins are burned, not buried. Cremation is more popular (is that the word?) than burial in Australia. Cremation was rare in Western societies until the twentieth century – Rookwood Crematorium opened in 1925, Eastern Suburbs (Botany) in 1938, and the practice was not truly mainstream until the 1960s and 1970s. The churches – the Roman Catholic Church, especially – were opposed to cremation, although this opposition is less strident today.

In 1994 the Powerhouse acquired technology and other artefacts from Eastern Suburbs Crematorium. It seemed worthwhile to document this major change in funeral ritual and practice. In addition, technological efficiency and certainty were main arguments for cremation – mourners received the tangible remains of their loved one, rather than a site for its slow decomposition.

The cremation process at Botany is now fully automated, partly to reduce atmospheric pollution and furnace fuel consumption. The artefacts acquired by the Powerhouse included a 1938 ‘charging’ machine – a wheeled trolley used to transfer coffins from the funeral chapels to the furnace (as seen in the photo above). The coffins were loaded and unloaded with manual assistance by Crematorium staff.

We also acquired a converted coffee grinder, used to ensure that the funery ashes attained a fine consistency.
94_225_1
With possibly an excess of curatorial zeal the acquiring curator, Eddie Butler-Bowdon, organised a photographic trip to Botany to record the crematorium works in action. Museum photographer Andrew Frolows’ images are memorable, capturing an experience quite different to that on the other side of the funeral chapel wall. 0022252002225100222550022256

An occasional debate occurs regarding the environment consequences of cremation and burial. This usually involves comparing the energy input and pollution output of a crematorium against that of indefinitely maintaining a cemetery.

Yet at a personal level the industrial violence of cremation was the abiding impression. Perhaps this is merely a new variant of the Victorian fear – dramatised in literature and music – of being buried alive. The most important consideration, perhaps, is the experience of the mourners, not that of curators (who are paid to be nosy).

We’d like to know your experiences and thoughts of cremation. Would you like to be cremated or buried?

Movement in the collection

Published by Erika Dicker 2 Comments Tags: , .

00z10981Photography by Jean-Francois Lanzarone © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.

Registration staff are (among many other things) responsible for moving Museum objects from A to B, this could be from one shelf to the one below or from the collection store to the main gallery space or between one of the numerous departments who require them for whatever reason. We just had some recent stats come in and thought we would share with you just how many movements of collection material happen in one year, last financial year to be precise.

For this year alone Registration and Stores staff have facilitated 60,353 object movements!

That is a whole lot of moving around, now for some interesting details associated with this figure of 60,353 –

Of these

652 were loans returned, that is objects carefully returned to lenders, with many kind thanks

On the flip side 513 movements sent out to other institutions big and small as part of our outgoing loans policy

1,490 were objects being moved to our photography studio

6,572 were objects heading to the conservation labs for some TLC

5,062 were movements of the historic wool collection, as part of the TAM Collection Maintenance project

306 were objects moved to the Display store at Castle Hill

And 4607 movements in and around the other stores at Castle Hill

00z06418

And the rest were movements to and from exhibition (including travelling exhibitions) and in and around the ultimo collection stores. This breaks down to

28,950 movements in the basement alone

6463 to REXAS – this is the Registration Exhibition Assembly Space

969 to the Switch house for exhibitions including Modern Times and the Odditoreum

138 to the Boiler Hall for ecologic, space, transport and Design Tech

320 to the Turbine hall for universal machine and the Australian Communities gallery

482 to the Wran building for Inspired, musical instruments, Gene Sherman, Yinalung Yenu, Student Fashion, Target Theatre, the Café and the boardroom

Now if you don’t mind we might have a little lay down.

contributed by Alison Brennan
Registrar, Exhibitions and Collections

A Snowy souvenir

Published by Rudder Debbie 0 Comments Tags: , , .

00503679 Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved.

The 60th anniversary of the launch of the Snowy Mountains Scheme will be celebrated on 17 October 2009. Such grand engineering projects tend to generate tourism – and souvenirs to remind tourists of their visit. They also remind us of the public relations exercises that help publicly funded projects reach their goals rather than be cut short by politicians. So which souvenir would a family with three young boys be likely to purchase in Cooma: a tea towel, teaspoon, pennant, or a map and cross section of the Scheme?

The Longworth family purchased this souvenir, and a moulded plastic topographic map of the area, for their educational value as well as to help them remember their journey and the experience of seeing the monumental Scheme transform the landscape. Ironically these souvenirs had long been forgotten when one of the Longworth boys finally tidied his boyhood bedroom in 1999 and discovered them behind his old wardrobe.

This object is a moulded plastic representation of two major cross sections of the mountains, showing reservoirs, tunnels, pumping stations and power stations. It has added historical value, when compared to representations of the completed Scheme, because it shows Kosciusko Reservoir and Power Station, which were never built – for cost and environmental reasons rather than loss of political will.

We’d love to hear if anyone else remembers these Snowy souvenirs?

Debbie Rudder

Ps: The Museum will have a small display in our foyer to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the scheme, don’t forget to have a look if you are coming to visit.

Dust as Art

Published by Lynne McNairn 4 Comments Tags: , , .

illusion dustPhotography © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.

Dust has been headline news recently with the dramatic dust storm over Sydney. This reminded me of an object in our collection literally made of dust! It is a necklace called ‘Illusion dust’ made by Japanese jewellery maker Teruo Akatsu in 1993.

Akatsu says of his work -

I aim to transform ‘negative’ jewellery into positive existence by accumulating dust over it. The use of dust is suggestive of the passing and accumulation of time. I collect dust from everyday places and thread it on to stainless-steel wires or incorporate it into sheets of material. The colours and nature of the dust play an important part in my jewellery making.

The general conception of jewellery is focussed on the fact that it adorns the body. However, this kind of understanding limits appreciation of my kind of jewellery. If we look at jewellery in terms of the relationship between the body and its surroundings, then we begin to see how we relate ourselves to objects, other people and our whole environment. With this in mind, the characteristics – including the advantages and disadvantages of the materials themselves, add meanings to my work. With the paradoxical nature of my work, I hope to question the true meaning of jewellery.

I like the fact that the Museum has collected an object made of dust when, for the most part, we go to a lot of effort at minimising this very thing!

Lynne McNairn
Registrar

Skylab debris

Published by Kerrie Dougherty 1 Comment Tags: .

00549776Photography Powerhouse Museum © all rights reserved.

With all the media attention focussed on the Apollo 11 Moon landing 40th anniversary, another space anniversary of particular interest to Australia passed un-noticed in July. Thirty years ago, in the early hours of July 12, 1979, the United States’ first space station, Skylab, re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and broke up scattering debris across the southern Indian Ocean and the south-eastern part of Western Australia. Launched in 1973, Skylab had been home to three crews of astronauts in 73-74.

Although the heaviest fragments of the station fell into the Indian Ocean, a large amount of Skylab debris fell in a swath from the coastal town of Esperance to the Nullarbor Plain, beyond the community of Balladonia. One of the pieces that landed on the Nullarbor was a large cylindrical oxygen tank that burst on striking the ground, breaking into two fragments which bounced in different directions. The largest fragment, the main body of the tank, ultimately found its way into the special Skylab collection of the Esperance Museum. The smaller piece, the end cap of the oxygen tank, remained undiscovered until the early 1990s when it was found by a stockman.

The circular lid had landed with its insulated exterior to the ground, so that its curved shape formed a shallow dish that caught rainwater, turning it into a very unusual drinking bowl for the cattle and native animals of the area. In fact, it was seeing animals drinking at a place where there should have been no water available that led to its discovery.

As you can see in the image, the end cap is torn and bent as a result of being ripped away from the rest of the tank and its exterior is covered by a composite insulation material with a woven fibreglass outer surface.

October 4th to 10th is World Space Week!

Engines- restoration or conservation?

Published by Rudder Debbie 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

95_241_1-1 001 Photography © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.

Collecting and tinkering with engines is still a popular hobby today. Although fewer young people are getting involved than in the past, some are discovering the fascination of these objects and the skills to be developed by working with them. A large element of this hobby’s attractiveness is the challenge of getting engines running, and, for many collectors, restoring engines to their original appearance.

The debate between restoration and conservation is important in this collecting area. As you can see from the photo of this Australian-made Comet engine, museums tend to argue strongly in favour of conservation. In the past, museums favoured restoration, and they still do in the case of engines found in extremely poor condition. It is the engines discovered with mostly original parts and with some of their original surface intact that are in contention; where a keen restorer will see a little paint amidst the rust, a museum conservator will see precious evidence of the original paintwork marred by a little rust, which can be treated so it does not consume more of the surface. In the case of rare engines like this one, it is hard to argue against the conservation stance.

Debbie Rudder

Bosdyk Doll’s House- part four

Published by Melanie Pitkin 0 Comments Tags: , , .
Gosia, the Museum's clever objects conservator, at work!

Gosia, the Museum's very clever conservator, in action!

The processes that follow an acquisition of an object into a museum’s collection are not as straightforward as some may think! All incoming objects need to be numbered, catalogued, researched and then documented and conserved. For one object, such as a broken vase, this may be quite time consuming, but if you think of the Bosdyk Doll’s House with approximately 2000 components…well, need I say anymore?!

This week I sat down with the Museum’s Objects Conservator, Gosia Dudek, to find out exactly what her involvement was in caring for the doll’s house.

Melanie: When did you first start work on the doll’s house?

Gosia: I started in September 2008 and finished in May 2009! But, I was working on other projects as well during that time.

Melanie: What was the aim of your work?

Gosia: To prepare the doll’s house for display and storage. This means recording its condition before and after treatment, which includes written and photographic documentation, and then the actual treatment.

Gosia working very carefully, room by room.

Gosia working very carefully, room by room.

Melanie: Can you describe what you were faced with when you first laid eyes on the doll’s house?

Gosia: It is a very large and detailed doll’s house. It’s over two meters high and has 20 rooms complete with furniture, electrical fittings, clothing, numerous homewares, ornaments as well as ‘people’ and ‘pets’. As you can imagine, the scale of all the pieces are rather small – a lot of them are between 3mm to 10mm in height and width.

Melanie: What was the condition of the doll’s house when it first came to the Museum? Were all the pieces attached?

Gosia: A number of the components were originally attached – some were fixed with screws, some were glued with various types of glue or stuck with double sided foam tape or blu-tack. Since the doll’s house was made over a period of 7 years, the tape, tack and glue dated to different points in time and were beginning to show signs of deterioration, mainly loss of adhesive properties. Also, the front of the doll’s house is open. This allowed dust to accumulate inside the house, especially on all the attached pieces and in hard to reach places – although, it was occasionally cleaned by Christine and Frans Bosdyk.

Melanie: Can you describe the types of things you had to do as a conservator to overcome these problems?

Gosia: My job was to clean the exterior and interior of the house and all its components, remove any deteriorated glue, double-sided foam tape, blu-tack, remove tarnish from silver pieces, repair any damaged parts etc. Then, my aim was to re-attach and secure as many pieces as possible using a variety of materials and techniques. Whenever possible I tried to secure objects by physical means using thread, Mylar (clear polyester film), silicon tubing, polyethylene foam, silk organza and metal wire. When that was not achievable, I had to use several types of acrylic adhesives or starch paste. The choice of adhesive depended on the kind of the materials the little objects were made of and where they were to be attached.

If you look carefully, you can see where some of the thread has been used to keep the books and newspapers in place...

If you look carefully, you can see where some of the thread has been used to keep the books and newspapers in place...

Melanie: Can you give some examples of how you used these materials on the different objects?

Gosia: I used thread for sewing and tying things down – such as the tablecloths to the tables; the bundles of linen and towels to shelves; the baby inside the pram and the mattress to the pram; pillows, mattresses and blankets to the beds; bath mats to basins or bundles of books to shelves. I used polyethylene foam to secure drawers to stop them from falling out of their spaces or to secure wine bottles in the wine racks. I glued things like the ceramic and glass cups and ornaments to the furniture and shelves, and used silicon tubing for securing things like the toothbrushes and spoons in their holders. I made stands out of silicone coated wire to support unsteady figurines.

An example of polyethylene foam used inside the drawers

An example of polyethylene foam used inside the drawers

Melanie: So, what didn’t you secure and why?

Gosia: Out of approximately 2000 pieces in the house, 158 individual pieces and assemblies (such as a table with crockery and cutlery on top) were left un-attached. These objects obstructed access to the back of rooms which need to be kept accessible for future cleaning and maintenance. These objects are currently packed and stored separately.

Melanie: How did you ensure you returned the object(s) to the right place in each room after you finished cleaning them?

Gosia: I worked from detailed photographs showing the original layouts of all 20 rooms and the exterior of the house.

Gosia methodically referring to the original photo layout

Gosia methodically referring to the original photo layout

Melanie: It sounds like incredibly painstaking work! How did you physically manage? I imagine you would need a lot of patience, steady hands and extremely good eyesight!

Gosia: I wear glasses normally and then on top of that, for very fine, detailed work, a pair of binoculars as well! I guess that yes, I must be a patient person, but when you are concentrating you’re aware of nothing else! The part that was a bit awkward for me was the height of the dolls house (it is 211cm tall), so I was standing on a ladder to access the rooms at the top and kneeling on the floor for the rooms at the bottom. The rooms in the middle were just right!

Melanie: For the individual cleaning of objects, what did you use?

Gosia: It depended on the material of the object I was cleaning. I brush vacuumed the exterior and all larger objects and the floors inside the house. Sometimes, when brush vacuuming was not sufficient, I also used groom-stick (a quite sticky, rubber-like material). Most of the objects – ceramic, glass, plastic and some painted surfaces – were cleaned using water and cotton wool buds. For metal objects I used mainly petroleum spirits. Removal of old glue deposits often involved the use of other solvents.

Melanie: Working up close and personal for so long with all the objects in each room must have given you the opportunity to pick up on some intimate details many people probably wouldn’t be able to see. What did you find most memorable?

Gosia: There were so many! Firstly, there are grandma’s dentures sitting inside her dresser; miniature books and bibles with the actual text on individual pages printed inside; six tiny biscuits sitting inside a tiny biscuit tin. Also, there are Swarovski miniature crystals and a gramophone that plays music. And, what about all those amazingly small framed photographs of the Bosdyk family hanging on walls and displayed on top of desks and dressers?! I was also quite touched by the handwritten messages on objects by Frans, such as “Hand made by F. Bosdyk inspired by Christine my wife 28-6-2003”. But the thing that impressed me most was the high quality workmanship and dedication of Frans Bosdyk – the desk in the library is the best example.

Grandma's dentures!

Grandma's dentures!

Melanie: You’ve done an amazing job! When will you have to start cleaning it again?

Gosia: Hopefully not for a long time… After treatment the front of the house was sealed with Mylar and a bespoke Tyvek cover was placed over the whole house to protect it from dust. At the moment the dolls house is kept in the Museum’s storage area, in controlled temperature and humidity conditions, awaiting a dust proof display case.