Design and Designers

Books, the best thing since sliced bread

Published by Anne-Marie Van de Ven 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

(left) Hand-drawn Alphabet book handmade by William Harrison, Australia, 1894. 97/132/1 (right) E R Boyce, Beginning to Read, England, 1950s. 2007/108/1 Collection:Powerhouse Museum

In this National Year of Reading, it is appropriate that the Powerhouse Museum mounts an exhibition which celebrates excellence is Australian book design and publishing. While the Museum collection contains hundreds of books, including the two children’s books illustrated above (one hand made in Australia by 13 year old William Harrison for his niece in England, the other published in England but used in Australian schools), it holds very few winning books from the Australian Publishers Association (APA) annual Book Design Awards (BDA).
Continue reading ‘Books, the best thing since sliced bread’

Leslie Walford AM, 1927-2012

Published by Lindie Ward 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

A bear with fond memories, 86/1053 Leslie Walford's teddy bear, Collection: Powerhouse Museum

In 1986 Leslie Walford donated a flamboyant collection of clothing and memorabilia to the Powerhouse Museum. Including this charming musical teddy bear. It was a gift from his father who died when Walford was two. This little toy has now outlasted its owner and will be fondly associated with Walford’s exuberant and generous personality. Walford remarked – He seems to be a bear of quality and his expressive features indicate his benign character.

The donation included Walford’s Mr Fish psychedelic shirts, Nutters of Saville Row suits, a kangaroo skin coat, an Yves Saint Laurent safari suit and set of Christian Dior ties. The collection tells of a time during the 1960s and 1970s when men’s clothing was exciting and exuberant.

86/1036, 86/1030, back of Mr Fish's psychedelic shirt and Milano trousers. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Leslie Walford’s dramatic aesthetic perfectly suited this time. His perspective on interior design was eclectic and colourful and led to a very distinguished career. After studying in Paris and London he became a prime mover in this field in Australia and served on numerous committees and foundations including the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Powerhouse Museum.

Walford’s Double Bay penthouse was bursting with intriguing stories reflecting his life and objects such as Fortuny silk lanterns and paintings by Jeffrey Smart that he collected through his extensive interests, friends and travels. In 2010 he received the Member of the Order of Australia for service to the performing arts and to the profession of interior design.
Leslie Walford will be sadly missed.

Sydney Mardi Gras: a daring, dazzling and defiant display of difference

Published by Anne-Marie Van de Ven 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

96/305/2 'Cotton Blossom' costume designed, made and worn by Ron Muncaster, for 1994 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Over the next 4 weeks, if the rain abates and the sun shines, the city of Sydney will come to life as 1000s of men and women fly into Sydney from around Australia and the world for the 2012 Sydney Mardi Gras which kicked off last Sunday with the annual Victoria Park Fair Day. This festival follows close on the heels of its New Orleans counterpart.

The Powerhouse Museum‘s collection includes a number of objects related to this internationally significant Sydney event, including David McDiarmid’s iconic poster for the 1988 Mardi Gras which places Australia on top of the world.

95/339/10 Poster designed by David McDiarmid for 1988 Sydney Gay Mardi Gras. Gift of Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Limited, 1995. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

The design of this and other Mardi Gras posters captures something of the exuberance and the spectacular costume and float designs associated with the Mardi Gras parade.

This year Mardi Gras celebrates its 35th anniversary by welcoming the return of Kylie Minogue and singer/songwriter Sam Sparrow. Both will perform at Mardigrasland, the bejewelled party environment set to take over Sydney’s Entertainment Quarter for the final days of the 2012 party season. As part of Mardi Gras’ earlier 20th anniversary celebrations, the Museum mounted an exhibition titled Absolutely Mardi Gras: costume and design of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras (1997).

The 2012 Mardi Gras program is packed with events like the Fair Day, Drag Races, a Youth Festival, Pool Party, etc but its the Mardi Gras Parade (7.45 to 10pm, 3 March) and the After-Parade Party at Mardigrasland (10pm -8am, 3-4 March) which form the key spots on the calendar for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersexed communities to get together to celebrate differences and commonalities with friends, family and community supporters.

95/172/1 Costume designed by Peter Tully, for 1990 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Peter Tully (1947-1992) the designer of the 1995 Mardi Gras costume illustrated above was creative director for Mardi Gras from 1982-1986. Under his tenure, the Mardi Gras workshop was founded and the Sydney Mardi Gras transformed from a political march to a cultural event. Tully and Ron Muncaster (1936- ), were two of Mardi Gras’ most spectacular costume designers. Muncaster’s ‘Cotton Blossom’ costume for the 1994 Parade is illustrated at the top of this post.

98/173/6 and 95/339/3-1, Preparatory collage (on left) by David McDiarmid for the 1990 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras poster (right). Collage, gift of the Estate of the late David McDiarmid, 1998; Poster, gift of Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Limited, 1995. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

The Museum’s collection also includes the original artwork that is a conceptual collage for the 1990 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. This poster was also designed by David McDiarmid (1952-1995).

The Museum’s Mardi Gras collection has been developing over a 25 year period, mainly as gifts of the organisers, the artists or their family and friends. These wonderful objects shine a light on the history of Sydney Mardi Gras and the aspirations and concerns of the Mardi Gras organisers and participants. The poster collection includes all Mardi Gras posters from 1981 to 1998, but we are still missing the three earliest posters (1978, 1979 and 1980) and have also not yet acquired the posters from 1999 through to 2012. If readers have copies of any of these missing posters in good condition, especially the earlier designs, and be willing to donate them to the collection, please contact the curator at annem@phm.gov.au or 92170161.

Post by Anne-Marie Van de Ven

Hand-made Christmas cards

Published by Anne-Marie Van de Ven 1 Comment Tags: , , .

Whipbird Christmas card, designed and hand-made by Suzanne Annand, 2011

Every year, around this time of the year, an envelope arrives on my desk which brings with it, pleasure and delight. This year, in response to the emerging community interest in the ‘hand-made’ (demonstrated in part by the enthusiastic response we’ve received to the Museum’s international Love Lace competition and exhibition), I thought I’d share some of this joy and delight with readers of the Museum’s ‘Inside the Collection’ blog.

This year the special envelope contained a decorative little hand-made cut-paper ‘Whipbird’ (above) with a glittering diamante eye! It had a metallic string thoughtfully attached so that the bird could be hung as a Christmas decoration. The card is the latest in a long running series of hand-made Christmas greeting cards that Suzanne Annand (nee O’Reilly) has been making since she was 8 or 9 years old, and one of a series that Suzanne has been sending to Museum curators since we first met Suzanne and Tony Annand in 1990, when the Museum acquired the Douglas Annand design archive.

Sheep, Christmas stocking, koala and gumleaf, and black swan Christmas card desgins, hand-made by Suzanne Annand, 1990-2010

For these cards, Suzanne draws inspiration from the things she sees around her – the whipbird, cockatoo and brush turkey were regular visitors to her garden in St Ives, the lizard was seen on a trip she and Tony took to Central Australia, the King parrot was seen while sitting on the veranda at Napoleon Reef, 18km east of Bathurst, the sheep is wrapped in wool from the shearing shed at their property at old Bredbo (now Jerangle).

Lizard Christmas card, Suzanne Annand

To create these highly personalized and appealing Christmas card designs, Suzanne uses readily available materials like coloured paper, tissue and card, diamantes and sequins, holographic stickers, metallic ribbons and threads, and sometimes natural ‘found’ objects like the dry gum leaf. Some are concertina format, others folded, but mostly each is shaped into an easily recognised form.

Penguin, Christmas tree, boomerang and cockatoo Christmas cards, designed and hand made by Suzanne Annand, 1990-2010

The materials are combined using simple techniques like paper cutting, origami folding, crumpling, knotting and threading, gluing, over drawing and hand painting, in an intuitive process which leads each year to a delightful new design.

Suzanne attributes some of her inspiration to the privilege of watching, and sometimes even helping, her father-in-law, Douglas Annand work. Annand is renowned for skilfully integrating a hand-made aesthetic into his unique and usually very sophisticated commercial artworks and designs like his iconic Qantas x Australia poster of 1972 (which Suzanne watched him create with coloured Letraset strips) or the memorable ANTA Black Swan poster design of 1954, which has obviously directly provided inspiration for Suzanne’s black swan Christmas card (above).

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing and reading about Suzanne Annand’s delightful designs. Thank you Suzanne for making Christmas each year just a little bit more charming and delightful with your hand-made cards! Wishing you, and our readers, all the very best for Christmas and the New Year – from all the staff in the Museum’s Design and Society curatorial department.

Santa stuck in a spider web Christmas card, designed and hand-made by Suzanne Annand, 1990-2010

All card images courtesy of Suzanne Annand
Post by Anne-Marie Van de Ven

Jobs – not the greatest just the latest

Published by Campbell Bickerstaff 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

During an interview yesterday regarding the design legacy of Steve Jobs I was probed to cast back and find something comparable.  I thought about Olivetti and their penchant, early in the 20th century, for graduates of the Bauhaus who they put to work on shaping their image, corporate and product, with new dynamic graphics and plasticity to product design.  This emphasis and understanding and appreciation from the corporate head down of design were later emulated by Braun and Sony (among others) with even more crafted identities.

Then I woke up last night and realised that I should have cast back just a little bit further for a fine example of what might in the day have mirrored Jobs’ recent efforts.  What product from the past was placed in peoples hands, a product that had been the domain of the professional made domestic, a product that could be put to a creative use, a product neat and simple in design, portable, easy to operate, empowering, global . . . why the Kodak Brownie of all things and the man behind it George Eastman.  Eastman put the power of photography into everyone’s hands . . . with a device just as simple, intuitive and elegant as the ipod . . . point and shoot.

So putting Jobs into some larger perspective he is not the greatest just the latest in a long line of visionary industrialists.

Joyce Gittoes Ceramic Art

Published by Anni Turnbull 3 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I recently had the privilege to undertake a 20 day internship at the Powerhouse Museum under the supervision of curator, Paul Donnelly. I was given the task of documenting an acquisition consisting of a series of ceramic pieces by Joyce Gittoes (b.1915). Researching the life of Joyce has been an immense honour as she has had an amazing journey, dedicating her life to her family and her art. The ceramic art by Joyce is unique, firstly in its dedication to the ceramic medium, and then in its focused subject matter. The evolution of her own artistic style is evident in the Museum’s collection which has work from her early career and her later works which are dedicated to the native fauna, the landscape and the cultural history of Australia. This recent acquisition complements the Museum’s earlier acquisition of Yellow House artworks.
Joyce studied ceramics during the Arts and Crafts movement in Australia in the 1950s under Mollie Douglas. All of Joyce’s work has been produced with great technique and skill. Her individual style is bold and expressive breaking away from the Japanese aesthetic style that was popular with her contemporaries. Joyce’s sculptures in the Museum’s collection from her early career were designed to be exhibited in the Yellow House. ‘Peg Leg Pete’ (1970-72) is a work that was inspired by the Surrealist artist Rene Magritte. The half-fish half-man sculpture was often placed in the fish pond at the Yellow House.

Peg-Leg Pete, ceramic sculpture of a fish-man, stylised modelled earthenware, Joyce Gittoes, Bardwell Park, Sydney, NSW, 1970-72 Collection Powerhouse Museum

The Yellow House was an artist collective established in the early 1970s in Sydney. It was organised by artists Martin Sharp, Brett Whitely, Greg Waite and Joyce’s son, George Gittoes. This period of contemporary art during the early 1970s is heralded as the hippy era in Australia’s art scene. The Yellow House in Macleay St, Potts Point in Sydney, was named after Van Gough’s studio in the south of France which he used as an escape from the stress of life in Paris. Van Gough wrote in a letter to his brother that he wanted to one day turn the studio into an artist’s boarding house, with live performance ‘happenings’, exhibition space and installations. George Gittoes was the creator of the Yellow House Puppet theatre. A re-creation of this room with the original puppets along with selected ceramics by Joyce Gittoes was acquired by the Museum prior to the ceramic acquisition which I have been working on for my internship. This work is almost in direct contrast to her later work which took on an Australiana theme, focusing on native animals and the landscape. These animal sculptures were exhibited during the 1980s in galleries around NSW and the Northern Territory and were made through the love that Joyce had for the native animals and native culture of Australia. They are unique in the detail that Joyce gave each one.

Owl, stylised modelled earthenware sculpture, Joyce Gittoes, Bardwell Park, Sydney, NSW, 1975-1990 Collecton: Powerhouse Museum

The owls, which are a personal favourite of many collectors, have individual characteristics; the barn owl, Boobook owls and the Barking owl have been made life-sized and with a great amount of detail given to the individual species. Joyce was often told by her patrons that, “each one (of her animals) appears to have a soul”. Quote, Joyce Gittoes, Artist Statement, 1986.
Post by Sarah Heenan, Curatorial intern with Dr Paul Donnelly, Curator, design & society.

Love Lace International Lace Award and Exhibition: an artist’s view

Published by Anni Turnbull 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Lace panels from 'Third Space II '

A textile artist from the Cook Islands, Andrea Eimke has spent the last week installing her work in the Love Lace exhibition. With the title ‘Third Space II’ the work is made up of thirty five hanging panels of tapa (bark cloth), cotton gauze, interfacing, thread and soluble stabilizer. The effect is to create ‘a landscape’ of lace. The words ‘bark cloth’ suggest a rather dark unyielding material. Instead Andrea has created an airy delicate fabric, lace that suggests nature. The panels are are enhanced by shadowy lighting and the soft sounds of the Atiu Island swiftlets (kopeka) fill the space.

Hanging the works is not a structured process and is Andrea’s favourite part of the creative experience. Andrea says

“in a way it is a site specific artwork. It had to react with its environment. It’s like a living organism, it grows. I decide I’ll hang this here, if its not working with rest, I have to take it away and hang it somewhere else. I wouldn’t dictate the structure, it needs to be alive and moving and that’s the way it is set up.”

Andrea’s work explores the space between her original German and adopted Polynesian cultures. Its about the energy in the unseen space between objects and the difference between natural and man-made materials and environment. Andrea moved to the small island of Aitu in the Cook Islands, (a seven hour flight from Sydney) in Polynesia twenty-eight years ago.

“I am interested in using natural materials and to leave them as natural as I can. But I like to see how far I can take them, I’m a bit of a control freak sometimes. It’s a balance between letting nature be nature and me controlling. I want to have a say.”

Detail from panel

Says Andrea:

“The idea is to give the viewer a physical experience. I hope visitors to the museum can visually experience an interaction between the panels. The idea of a boundary and the space inbetween. Japanese people have a word for it, the energy between. It is ‘Ma‘
Whereas Westerners think of the space in-between two objects as empty, the Japanese see energy from the interaction between the two objects. I like this idea because it’s not empty at all. I hope I can create energy between the observer and the objects.”

This is the second time Andrea has hung embroidered tapa panels.The first time was in Rarotonga in a 1830s stone cottage. She describes the experience:

“It was magical, the room didn’t have windows, it had French doors and we had to have them open. It was summer and really hot with strong winds. The panels are very light, they were moving and blowing up and turning around. Some people would be too scared to be inside the panels; others would walk straight in and interact with the panels and dance with them in the wind, and even singing!”

The installation process for thirty five pieces has been faster this time. Andrea has discovered new ways to hang the pieces from a metal grid.

Andrea spent two days in the Museum’s conservation department. She uses small swivel hooks that attach to each panel and to the metal grid. The overall effect is to anchor the works. She has also been able to use small perspex rods within the panels to help them hang correctly. With access to more materials and better facilities, she’s been able to install the work with more efficiency and accuracy. Andrea says “Each of the pieces is like my children, some are good, some are trouble.”

Andrea preparing to hang a panel

* Interview with Andrea Eimke and images by Anni Turnbull 21 July 2011

The pleasures and sorrows of objects – part 1

Published by Melanie Pitkin 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Photography © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.

To bide some time in the airport recently, I started to read Alain de Botton’s The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (for which the title of this blog post gets its inspiration). Like a number of de Botton’s works I have read previously, I’m always captivated by his alternative ways of seeing. He looks at the details we typically overlook – in a philosopher meets cultural anthropologist meets the layperson kind of way – whether it is the work that goes into building a pylon, designing a biscuit (yes, you can design a biscuit!) or marketing a tin of tuna. All products of our everyday lives (which we all too easily accept without question), de Botton emotionally re-engages us with the meaning and purpose of work and, by extension, relationships, travel, finances and our psychological wellbeing. Not just a plate of tuna, for example, de Botton takes us back to the work involved in farming, catching, cooking, flavouring and tinning the tuna. We might pay less than $2 for a tin, but there is an extensive history behind that tin that we normally don’t give a second thought to before it reaches our supermarket shelves and consequently, our stomachs.

The more I read de Botton’s approach to the pleasures and sorrows of work, the more I thought about objects and material culture in the context of the museum. So much of what is designed and consumed by us is overlooked – from the work that went into the design of our toaster, our car, our lounge suite, our drinking glass, our heating or cooling system, our portable music devices and our television. For example, when was the last time you answered the phone and pondered how it worked? I’m guessing, only when something went wrong with it. Or, when was the last time you questioned the layout of the QWERTY keyboard? Maybe it was when you kept hitting the wrong key! We similarly undervalue tuna until there is a shortage or a pylon until the roof caves in. Okay, perhaps that’s taking it a little to the extreme, but what I’m really interested in as a museum curator, is how to make the invisible visible or the overlooked looked. How can we better promote curiosity and value with regards to the meaningfulness of everyday things? How can we communicate the very personal relationships we all share with objects and also, indirectly, each other? And, how can we foster these for the long term within the museum context?

I now draw your attention to Donald Norman’s book Emotional Design – why we love (or hate) everyday things. In this, he identifies three main levels in our cognitive and emotional system to which we respond to objects. The first level is our immediate, pre-conscious response which is normally triggered by the appearance, touch and feel of an object (he calls this visceral design). The second level is our experience with that object – its use, function and performance (behavioural design) and the third is our reflective, processing abilities. It is here that we use our reasoning and judgement to either form or break a relationship with an object for the long term (reflective design). The more I think about these, the more I question their relevance to museum objects – many of which were once, or still are ‘everyday’ objects. I mean, in a museum context, the sensory elements of touch and feel, use, function and performance are removed once that object is placed inside a showcase. I guess what we rely on then is appearance, memory or a vicarious experience (like watching AV footage) to activate our cognitive and emotional systems – but is this enough?

In this first post of a series of ongoing ones I intend to publish around museum objects and emotion, I’d like to try a little experiment. I’m calling upon all our readers here to share with us the most moving object they’ve seen in a museum. What was so powerful about the object and how did it help to shape your overall museum experience?

Meet a Student Fashion Designer- Crystal Tsoi

Published by Melanie Pitkin 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

Photography © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.

Just in case you didn’t see my earlier post, over on D’Hub we’ve started a new series of interviews with designers called 6×6. The concept is simple. We interview 6 designers in 6 minutes each – delving into the quirky, the unknown, the understated and the oh-so unbelieveable personal habits, interests, thoughts and idiosyncracies of Australian and International designers. Here is a snapsot from our 6×6 series of interviews with student fashion designers.

Designer’s name: Crystal Tsoi
What she’s known for? Crystal is the first student (i.e. non-graduate) to be selected to show at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week. She is currently featured in the Student Fashion exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum and she is a finalist in the Australasian Student Design Awards for her ‘Intangible Contortion’ collection.

Q1. If there was only one material left on the planet, what would you want it to be?
Organza

Q2. What would you make from it?
Maybe a [transparent!] dress.

Q3. What was the last exhibition you visited?
This one here!

Q4. What is the most played song on your iPod?
Muse – Unintended.

Q5. Apart from your own, what do you think is the most fabulously designed dress to date and why?
Viktor and Rolf – their designs are very innovative. They studied architecture before they did fashion so I like the way they incorporate this. They share the same ideas I have.

Q6. Describe your design approach in three words
(1) Forms (2) Proportion (3) Illusion

Q7. What’s the best thing about your work?
I’ve been doing fashion for 5 years – the first 4 years was getting read for this moment. Coming to Australia has given me more confidence to be myself and therefore I’m more innovative.

Q8. What’s the worst?
My work is not mature or perfect yet – I’m still a student. I want to be creative still, but also balance my ideas with the commercial side.

Q9. What’s the next design you’re working on?
Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in May. I have been selected to show even though I haven’t graduated yet. I’ll be sticking to the theme of “Intangible Contortion” (showing in the 2011 Student Fashion exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum). There will be 6 graduates (including me as a non-graduate!) doing 10 pieces each.

Q10. Who is your design icon and why?
I don’t have a particular one. I llike the big names and I get inspiration from multiple ones. For example, McQueen, Viktor & Rolf etc.

From the top…
Interviewees are asked to select which of the following pairs of words best describes them.

Caribbean or Casablanca? Caribbean
Eames or Aalto? Don’t know
Cat or dog? Dog
Red wine or white wine? Red wine
Apartment or house? House
Mercedes or BMW? Mini Cooper
Picasso or Renoir? Picasso
Myer or David Jones? David Jones
Swim or jog? Swim
Michael or Madonna? Michael
Gaga or Katy? Katy
iPhone or Blackberry? Blackberry
Snow or surf? Surf
Lefty or righty? Righty
Cadbury or Nestle? Nestle
Black or white? White
Skinny or full cream? Full cream
With sugar or without? Without
Cash or card? Cash
Half empty or half full? Half full

Complete the sentences…

Today I’m wearing… a black dress from Hong Kong, a $2 scarf from Balmain markets, a $65 pair of knee-high boots from Dotti, a power shoulder jacket from Hong Kong and a necklace with a Buddha etched on it my Mum gave me. I was born in the Year of the Rabbit – my Mum got the necklace from a temple in Hong Kong and I will wear it for luck for the rest of this year!
The next thing I have to buy is… an industrial machine to do more design sewing.
Before this interview, I was… at home scanning my designs for Fashion Week.
After this interview, I am… going to see my machinist to finish off my dress for the Wool Awards in Surry Hills.

Meet a Museum Designer- Krister Gustafsson

Published by Melanie Pitkin 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Photography © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.

Over on D’Hub we’ve started a new series of interviews with designers called 6×6. The concept is simple. We interview 6 designers in 6 minutes each – delving into the quirky, the unknown, the understated and the oh-so unbelieveable personal habits, interests, thoughts and idiosyncracies of Australian and International designers. Here is a snapsot from our 6×6 series of interviews with museum designers.

Designer’s name: Krister Gustafsson
What he’s known for: Designing interactives and participatory experiences (Krister is an Industrial Designer in the Powerhouse Museum’s Interactives Department)

Q1. Who is the last person you received an email from?
Myself! It was a reminder about some research work I have to do.

Q2. What design projects are you currently working on at the Museum?
The Wiggles – I am designing an interactive called ‘The Fruit Salad Machine’. It’s a creative concept which gets children to slice pieces of fruit and toss it into a bowl. It includes a cooking bench top with projections. You can toss the virtual fruit into a real bowl and pieces of fruit foam get blown around in the centre.

Q3. How did you get here?
The job advertisement was pointed out to me. On the same day as the Powerhouse Museum interview, I also had one at the Australian National Maritime Museum. But, to actually get the job, I studied Industrial Design at UTS and I ran my own Industrial Design consultancy business for entrepreneurs.

Q4. Apart from your computer, name 5 items on your work desk you just have to have to make an effective working day
Vernier calipers, a ruler, lots and lots of paper and pens for sketching, fruit and a bottle of water. I also need a big ass screen!

Q5. How is working as a designer in a museum different from any other context?
It’s super-dooper creative! You get to specialise in creating one-off pieces and you can work with people from really diverse backgrounds and see how everyone is a collector in one way or another. There are great learning opportunities here too, and it’s a highly supportive environment.

Q6. Do you have a ‘design bible’? If so, what is it?
I have a few. The work of Swiss architect, Bernard Tschumi, really changed my way of thinking. He has really strange sayings like “In order to really appreciate architect, you need to commit murder”. His way of thinking polarises his fans and it brings punk into my work. Also, more recently, I’ve been reading one on game design by Jane McGonigal. It’s about empowering people through digital media.

Q7. What do you consider to be your greatest museum design accomplishment to date?
The Magic Garden – a highly interactive and immersive play space for kids to make them take their health more seriously.

Q8. What’s the last Word document you opened on your computer?
A document on the The Wiggles exhibition which lists the experience objectives and how my interactive can support child development.

Q9. What’s your favourite ‘designed’ object in the Museum’s collection?
The one that’s worth the most! Actually, I really like the Baron Schmiedel bust!

Q10. What’s your ultimate [real or fantasy] design project you’d like to work on at the Museum?
I can’t reveal this yet!

From the top…
Interviewees are asked to select which of the following pairs of words best describes them.

Minimalist or clutter? Clutter
Facebook or Twitter? Facebook
Zoe or Cogs? Zoe
City or the burbs? The burbs
Vegemite or peanut butter? Peanut butter
Holden or Ford? Holden
Beatles or Stones? Stones
London or Las Vegas? London
Nightclub or night in? Nightclub
Early bird or night owl? Night owl
Coke or Fanta? Fanta
One pillow or two? One pillow
Red or blue? Blue
Fiction or non-fiction? Fiction
Live or recorded? Recorded
Run or swim? Run
Runny yoke or hard yoke? Hard yoke
Diesel or unleaded? Unleaded
Brisbane or Melbourne? Melbourne
Dali or Magritte? Dali

Complete the sentences…

The most expensive thing on my body today is… my organs. But, they’re not insured.
At the moment, I am putting off… retirement.
What irritates me the most is… politics.
If I wasn’t working at the Powerhouse Museum, I would be… an artist of interactive live performances and children’s interactives.