Hedda Morrison collection
The Hedda Morrison collection comprises exhibition prints, personal papers and objects from China, Sarawak and Australia

6 November - 8 December 2002

Old Peking: photographs by Hedda Morrison 1933-46 and New Beijing: photographs by contemporary Chinese photographers organised by the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney and the Art Museum of the China Millennium Monument, Beijing marked the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Australia and China.

Old Peking: photographs by Hedda Morrison 1933-46 presented a selection of black and white photographs from over 400 that were donated to the Powerhouse Museum by Alastair Morrison (Hedda Morrison's husband) in 1992. The Powerhouse Museum holds the largest and most comprehensive collection of Hedda Morrison photographs and research material in Australia.

The photographs document Hedda Morrison's view of the city she chose as home for thirteen years. Between 1933 and 1946, Hedda Morrison took thousands of photographs of Peking city walls, palaces and parks, temples and archways, street hawkers and vendors, food and entertainment and religious or folk customs. She found inspiration in the street life of Peking and the everyday activities of ordinary working people. She was particularly interested in traditional crafts and took photographs that recorded the process of making and creating.

Hedda Morrison's photographs document buildings that no longer exist in Beijing, or that are inaccessible to the public as well as traditional crafts that are no longer practiced in the same way. As such, the collection of photographs is an important historical archive relating to the look of the city and the lives of its inhabitants that have changed beyond recognition since 1933.

Many of Hedda's photographs have strong, modernist inspired compositions, incorporating dramatic birds-eye views that create angles and shadows adding interest to the subject. While some portraits are posed, most are candid shots clearly showing the good rapport Hedda developed with her subjects. Interestingly she rarely focused on the life of the non-Chinese residents of Peking, such as herself.

Hedda Morrison's images contribute to the large body of professional and amateur photographs of China taken by Chinese and Western photographers in the lead up to the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Like other Western photographers, Hedda constructed a particular image of China, one that was primarily intended for a Western audience.

Street scene in the outer Chinese
city, Hedda Morrison, 1933-46

Old Peking: photographs by Hedda Morrison was displayed alongside New Beijing, a selection of colour photographs by contemporary Chinese photographers curated by the Art Museum of the China Millennium Monument. The New Beijing photographs have been selected from a large group of images taken over a seven-day period in May 2000 by photographers from across China.

This was part of a larger project that brought leading Chinese and international photographers to Beijing to record the look and the life of the city. Photographs include famous sites such as the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven, as well as images of modern-day life and the extraordinary contemporary architecture that has transformed much of the old city.

This unique two-part exhibition explored change in Beijing over the past eighty years and offered two cultural perspectives - a western photographer's view of 'Old Peking' and Chinese photographers' views of 'New Beijing'.

Beijing International Financial
building, Yang Jun, Beijing, 2000

This exhibition was supported by:
The Commonwealth of Australia through the Images of Australia Branch, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Australia-China Council
Alastair Morrison
Beijing Wan Hui Pharmaceutical Enterprise Group
Singapore Airlines
Australian Embassy, Beijing
Consulate General of the People's Republic of China, Sydney

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