Monthly Archive for June, 2009

This image from an original glass plate negative held in the Powerhouse Museum Collection shows observation camp set up in the Blue Mountains for the 1874 transit of Venus. This was an event of great significance for scientists and special observation posts like this were set up around the globe. This camp was on the property of A. Fairfax in Woodford in the Blue Mountains. Present at this site were seven observers P. F. Adams Surveyor-General, G. D. Hirst a well known amateur astronomer, Mr. Vessy of the Trigonomical Survey, Mr. Du Faur of the Survey Department, J. Bischoff the photographer and two unnamed carpenters.

The special telescope (photoheliograph) operated by G. D. Hirst was the same as those used by five other observatories which were part of the Royal Observatory Transit of Venus program. The others went to Honolulu, Mokkatam, Rodriguez, Kereguelen and Burnham. The photoheliograph was made by J. H. Dallmeyer to accommodate a special piece of photographic apparatus designed by Janssen and de la Rue which took 6.5 inch circular photographic plates.

Photography by Joseph Bischoff
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator

Tribute to Magritte, originally uploaded by Powerhouse Museum.

From the North Sydney Olympic pool you look up at the bridge that crosses the harbour just above your head. You see Luna Park’s entrance, the Opera House, the tops of buildings in the city catching the first rays of the morning sun, the observatory or the Walsh Bay docks…some people will simply look at the clouds through the large windows of the main staircase, the former entrance to the pool. Where Magritte would have looked if he had come for a swim!

Photography by Jean-Francois Lanzarone
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0
Post by Jean-Francois Lanzarone

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful response to our first post in the ‘What’s in the workshop series’. We will definitely be bringing you more of these over the coming weeks. I am now seeing the workshop in a new way. Paula

Look what we found in the workshop this morning!

Initially I thought it was some kind of invention, using peddle power to get yourself to the shops whilst drying your clothes at the same time. Everyone loves a Hill’s Hoist , it’s a great Australian design icon , so why not throw one onto a quad bike? Brilliant.

But, as a curator I should probably do a little research before I make such outrageous suggestions.

The bike was actually used in one of Sydney’s biggest street parades called the ‘Journey of a Nation’ on January 1 2001. It was a parade that attempted to recreate the Federation Parade (see ABC) in 1901, which almost solely featured soldiers and dignitaries.

The parade in 2001 was used to illustrate how far we had come as a nation and included Aboriginal Australians, women, as well as some of our greatest innovations.

I am beginning to think the Powerhouse has a fetish for strange things on wheels (ie prawn bike and licorice shoe trike). The only thing this wheeled wonder is missing is the oversized apples! Then it’s out of the workshop and off to the Odditorium.

Photography by Paula Bray
© All rights reserved
Post by Erika Dicker, Curator

This image, of three young boys playing billiards, comes from the David Mist photographic archive. This particular shot was taken in Woolloomooloo and was published in David’s book about life in Sydney under the title “Boys practise a man’s game in the inner suburb of Woolloomooloo.” The book, ‘Sydney, A Book of Photographs’, was first published in 1969 and features some of David’s candid moments of city and suburban life in and around Sydney. The image above appeared on page 87 of the book.

The Museum acquired the David Mist archive in the 90s, this includes biographical material, portraits of David Mist , magazines and tear sheets featuring Mist’s fashion and other commercial photography, transparencies and negatives relating to Mist’s ‘Sydney’ and ‘Made in Australia’ books, prints, transparencies and negatives relating to David Mist’s Australian Centre for Photography exhibition ‘Mysteries’ of 1978 etc.

Photography by David Mist
© All rights reserved

Erika Dicker, who usually blogs over here , and I have joined forces to give you a new post called “What’s in the workshop”. We both walk by the workshop several times a day and it constantly changes and can be quite amusing. So here is the first post by Erika.

This morning was just like every other morning. Arrive at work, stumble down to get coffee, attempt to wake up, walk back past the workshop to get to my desk, cast eye down to the woodworking machines, tools, saws, welders, giant liquorice shoe…

What? GIANT LIQUORICE SHOE! on a tricycle no less! And I thought the prawn bike couldn’t be topped.

Investigation tells me that this liquorice allsorts shoe/tricycle is in need of a few minor repairs before hitting the Museum floor later this year for the “Odditorium” (keep an ear out for this one…well worth coming to see). It’s from the Sydney Olympic Games Collection and was used in the huge party that was the Closing Ceremony. It was ridden by one of the 62 drag queens to the dulcet tones of Kylie Minogue’s “On a Night Like This”.

It is definitely adding a bit of ‘bling’ to the workshop and is one of my new favourite objects. I wish it could stay, but alas it is off to a more prestigious location.

Photography by Paula Bray
© All rights reserved
Post by Erika Dicker, Curator