Free afternoon talks
Level 2
Wednesdays 12.30-1.30pm
Sundays 2.00-3.00pm
Talks After Noon is a series of lectures from Museum curators, experts and special guests. Talks are free with Museum entry ($10 adult/$6 concession/Members free).
Wednesday 28 October
Tokens of love in the Powerhouse Museum collection
Dr Paul Donnelly, Curator, Design, History and Society, Powerhouse Museum
Tokens of love can be purpose-made or accidental; they can be of precious materials, utilitarian items, or even corporeal; they can commemorate romantic love or love between friendship and family. Forced separation has inspired items such as ‘convict love tokens’ or wartime ‘sweetheart jewellery’. In this talk, curator Paul Donnelly will discuss the breadth of items in the Powerhouse Museum collection that have been used to celebrate relationships and that vital ethereal element that binds them – memory.
Wednesday 4 November
A daughter of Neptune: researching Annette Kellerman
Einar Docker, Powerhouse Museum
Annette Kellerman achieved international fame as a swimmer, performer, silent movie star and lecturer on health, yet very little is known of her today. Join Einar Docker as he shares his recent discoveries that relate to the Powerhouse Museum’s collection of Kellerman costumes, including the premiere of recently re-discovered extra footage from one of Annette’s silent films: Neptune’s Daughter (1914).
Wednesday 11 November
Architecture: a performing art
John Andrews, Architect
John Andrews was the first Australian architect to gain international recognition. John established his career in North America during the 1960s, revolutionising the design of university campuses with projects including Scarborough College, Toronto and Gund Hall, Harvard.
Returning to Australia during the 1970s John reshaped commercial architecture with projects including the American Express Tower, Australia’s first ‘green’ office building. John recently donated his design archive to the Powerhouse.
John Andrews stood apart from architectural fashion, returning to first principles for each project. Intense study of each building's purpose produced an architecture of dialogue and problem-solving: architecture as a performing art.
Wednesday 18 November
When Lynn met Diana: the story of an early Australian supermodel
Lynn Sutherland
Lynn Sutherland became one of Australia’s earliest supermodels after meeting Diana Vreeland, legendary editor of Vogue America, and appearing on the cover on 15 February 1970. Despite being photographed by Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, George Barkentin, Patrick Demarchelier and other leading photographers, Lynn remained a down-to-earth Aussie girl. Lynn will share her globe trotting experiences, from Australia in the mid-1960s to the Paris fashion scene during the late 1960s, and on to New York in the early 1970s. Lynn will also show rare film footage taken while working in remote locations with photographers such as Jean-Jacques Bugat in Tunisia, Alberto Rizzo in Kenya and Jo Francki in Senegal.
Wednesday 25 November
Australian Dress Register
Lindie Ward and Rebecca Pinchin, Powerhouse Museum
The Australian Dress Register is an exciting project being developed by the Powerhouse Museum. It will enable people in regional areas to feature historical garments from their dress collections on an online register. These historical garments and their stories can be viewed on the web, while garments themselves can remain safely stored in the communities where they belong. Help sheets and videos have been developed to assist in all aspects of the documentation, photography, display and storage of the garments. The register will be formally launched early 2010. At this talk curator Lindie Ward will reveal, for the first time, some of the entries from this intriguing project.
Sunday 1 November
Death and the Museum
Geoff Barker, Erika Dicker, Glynis Jones, Melanie Pitkin, Christina Sumner and Lindie Ward, Powerhouse Museum
In a rare event serendipitously held between Halloween and All Soul’s Day, join six Museum curators to explore death in the collection. Mummies are a favourite Halloween character and Melanie Pitkin will look at a selection of Egyptian objects used to accompany the deceased in their tomb on their journey through death. Erika Dicker will delve into death amongst the Museum’s health and medicine collection, while Geoff Barker will provide the ghost stories with his talk on spirit and ghost photography. War, seduction and murder feature in Lindie Ward’s talk on the lace and textiles collection. Glynis Jones will focus on connections between the living and the dead through the fashion and dress collection and finally, Christina Sumner will uncover the funerary customs of the Torajan people from the large Indonesian Island of Sulawesi.
Sunday 8 November
12pm – 2pm SKETCH Inspired! design across time exhibition
2pm – 3pm DISCUSS with Dr Paul Donnelly, Curator, Design, History and Society
SketchPad
with Stephanie Bray, visual artist and Dr Paul Donnelly, Curator, Design, History and Society
Take a seat in the Inspired! design across time exhibition and sketch under the studied guidance of visual artist, Stephanie Bray. Are you taken by Josiah Wedgwood's cauliflower creamware, or Bertram Mackennal's candleholder 'Leda and the Swan'? Between 12pm and 2pm float in and out of the gallery and practice your still life drawing or learn how to draw all over again with other like minded adults! At 2pm, you'll be joined by a Museum curator who will detail the history of the objects that have inspired you. Before you leave you can either display your drawings or take them home.
Sunday 15 November
Apollo 12: more than a repeat performance
Kerrie Dougherty, Curator, Space Technology, Powerhouse Museum
Less than four months after the historic Apollo 11 mission, Apollo 12 made the second expedition to the Moon. More than just a repeat of Apollo 11, Apollo 12 represented the beginnings of serious scientific study of the lunar surface after the ‘flags and footprints’ of the previous mission. In this talk space technology curator Kerrie Dougherty talk will present the Apollo 12 mission and its achievements, despite surviving a lightning strike at launch. It will also look at the post-astronaut career of Lunar Module Pilot Alan Bean, who has now become one of the world's foremost space artists.
Sunday 22 November
Exploding stars and the accelerating cosmos: Einstein's blunder undone
Professor Robert P. Kirshner, Harvard University
Recent observations of exploding stars discovered halfway across the Universe reveal an astonishing fact: the expansion of the Universe is speeding up! Apparently, the Universe is dominated by a mysterious dark energy that drives cosmic acceleration. The dark energy may be a modern form of the 'cosmological constant' created by Einstein in 1917, but abandoned by him in the 1930s. Robert P. Kirshner, a distinguished astronomer and teacher at Harvard University, explains this astonishing new picture of the universe in a lively, richly illustrated presentation, drawing on his own first-hand account of the discovery.
Sunday 29 November
Astrophotography on a budget
Mike Salway, amateur astronomer and photographer