Curate Your Own Adventure

The Moderns: European Designers in Sydney is now showing at the Museum of Sydney until November 26, 2017. There is something about furniture and homewares from the 1930s to 1960s that just fills a small void in my life. It’s basically the transformation of furniture from verging on impractical to sleek and beautifully designed. In other words, this movement allowed simple to be magnificent. When I heard about this exhibition opening in Sydney I was very intrigued. We must have had some amazing designers around this period, but I’ve never heard their stories. Today was the day to educate myself and admire the men and women who often fled tumultuous circumstances in Europe to practice their craft and realise their designs.

The exhibition is located on Level 2 of the Museum of Sydney. Just before entering the space, there is a large thematic panel with the exhibition title in neon blue. Contained in a glass tube is a chair manufactured by George Karody. As the introductory panel states, modern Australian architecture is so often associated with Harry Seidler. Those that came before him are ignored and marginalised from the story. So already you feel as though it is going to be a different kind of modernist exhibition that tackles new material.

The exhibition space allows you to select whatever path you wish to take. It is essentially set up to showcase the biographies of early designers and photographs/objects representing their work. The display cases are so perfectly designed to look like 1920s Art Deco pieces. Each designer has their own colour and section of the exhibition. Men and women are represented in the space which was great to see.

Apart from the biography panels and cases, parts of the exhibition space were re-created rooms from Sydney houses. The furniture was all inspired or created by the designers and told the story of a particular family and their connection to the moderns.

That basically provides a nice overview of the entire exhibition space. See the photographs below for further layout information.

The rest of the blog will focus on three designers that I found to be most interesting. Also, I’ll briefly discuss one of the house set ups that really caught my eye.

1. Susan Kozma-Orlay

Kozma-Orlay was born in 1913, in Budapest Hungary. After studying in Budapest, Stuttgart, and Vienna, she fled to Australia with her family having survived Nazi occupation. During her illustrious career, Kozma-Orlay worked for companies such as David Jones, designing graphics for their silk and textile patterns. She later moved into furntiure and interior design working closely with Stephen Gergely in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. Her earlier work is now on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

After reading about this amazing journey from Europe to Australia, you are then invited to see some of her designs both in pictorial form and as actual objects. The first image is of a beautiful drinks chest that has wheels attached for easy manouevring. My favourite object, however, was the samples book created for David Jones containing some of her designs.

What worked really well in this space was the use of backlighting to highlight specific images. By creating contrast with lights, the display was more visually appealing and your eyes were drawn to the most significant works.

2 and 3. Oser and Fombertaux

Hans Oser was born in Austria, arriving in Sydney in 1938. Jean Fombertaux was born in France and arrived in Sydney three years earlier. In Sydney, the two formed a partnership utilising their design skills and producing late-international-style architecture.

Their work included the William Bland Centre on Macquarie Street and the BOAC Travel Centre on Castlereagh Street. The latter was included in the Royal Australian Institute of Architectus in 1971.

I have selected these personalities because the images that accompanied their stories were extremely powerful. In particular, seeing the Star of David added to one of the buildings made me reflect on the broader themes of the exhibition as well as take a moment to consider wider contexts.

They also produced some stunning interiors and the backlit photographs were difficult to miss when first entering the space.

4. Room with Cocktail Cabinet

It is incredibly difficult to walk past this section of the exhibition and not fall immediately in love with the cocktail cabinet. The work is stunning and it is such a treasure piece of Art Deco. Also the wood is sourced from Queensland so a huge plus there.

In saying this, there was another room with a great little story attached – the Schwartz House. The room panel explored the story of Laci and Magda Schwartz who emigrated to Sydney from Hungary and had George Reves design their house. This room is an example of their entertaining space where visitors could overlook Sydney Harbour. The story was going so well until the ending. The house was demolished in 2000, seriously heart breaking. All of this amazing modernist design and architecture no longer exists.

Here are some of the other room displays:

This level of design and the individuals who championed the modernist movement have been thoughtfully remembered in the exhibition space. I just wish more of these Art Deco properties and their interiors remained! For today, seeing the designs and products in a museum will have to do. I can dream that one day I’ll own a house that will be modernist designed from floor to ceiling.

To celebrate 100 years since the birth of President John F. Kennedy (JFK), exhibitions are popping up all over America and in other places around the world. I was absolutely not expecting an exhibition at Penrith Regional Art Gallery and Museum. I was shocked to see that they were displaying photographs of Kennedy in an exhibition titled: American Visionary: John F. Kennedy’s Life and Times. Penrith is approximately one hour by train from Sydney CBD. The journey was worth it to see the exhibition.

I was so excited to see how a regional museum tackled his presidency and how they selected to display the photographs. In total, there were four rooms and a small hallway. Each room represented a different theme covering the early years, the presidential campaign, and his time as president. It was in the cutest little house inside the gallery complex. You felt as though you were literally walking into someone’s place. Once inside, the video playing footage of the Kennedy campaign etc, transformed the space entirely.

It was a perfect size for an exhibition. I spent around 45 minutes looking at the display, but, you could easily see it all in only 30 minutes. To start, there is a thematic panel welcoming visitors to the space explaining how Kennedy and the media were inseparable. His presidency really was in this ‘golden age of photojournalism’ (one of the many reasons why I find his presidency so fascinating). You are then informed that the Kennedy family conveyed a new vision of America – one filled with change and opportunity. It was a very interesting way to introduce the exhibition. It conforms to how JFK is regarded today – as the hopeful President who never had the chance to complete one term of his presidency.

After reading the panel there is no set way to see the photographs. It makes sense to start in the first room on the left that depicts the early years of Kennedy up until his presidential campaign. Now I have seen multitudes of photographs of his presidency. I’ve visited the JFK Library and Museum in Boston a few times and have researched his presidency for many assignments and just out of interest. There were so many photographs I had never seen before which was seriously exciting. I liked how they covered his early life before launching into his thousand days in office. Also, the photographs weren’t just of him. They have made a great effort to select images that also depict the social, cultural, and wider political issues America faced under his presidency. For example, there was a powerful image of the Birmingham Riots.

The rooms were all curated with such care. The photographs were well positioned and did not clutter the space. Often I feel galleries are too sparse or too cluttered so it was nice to feel a balance. My favourite room was right down the back of the house also on the left. The image of JFK and Robert “Bobby” Kennedy sitting on a bed contemplating everything is one of my favourite images of his presidency. It was used on the book cover for “Brothers” by David Talbot. It is just a stunning photograph capturing the hidden history behind the public face of JFK that eluded to nothing but confidence.

I also enjoyed the room that looked at the youth of Kennedy including family photographs and photographs of his wedding to Jacqueline Bouvier. There was a small thematic panel exploring the family dynamic of the Kennedy family which is complex, tense, and filled with misfortune.

I also wanted to share a couple of photographs I had never seen before. The first is of Kennedy’s visit to Berlin in June 1963. Mere months before his assassination. The photograph depicts Kennedy at Checkpoint Charlie, looking at the wall with a crowd of East Berliners seen in the background. It would be fantastic to have this image on display at the Kennedy Museum in Berlin!

Another image I had never seen before was one of JFK sitting in a chair writing something while children crowd around the window outside. It is such a fun photograph and I spent a little while contemplating whether or not it was entirely staged. Clearly the majority of his photographs as President have been staged to conform to a certain image. This one, however, looked more natural than the others.

Finally, another highlight image was not of JFK himself, but, of the voting booth during the election. You can only see the legs of those inside the booth. Again, this is a quirky image and a great addition to the exhibition space.

The only real critical thought I had throughout my visit was that occassionaly there were obvious spelling mistakes on the labels. There was one glaring word in the introductory panel that did not fit in the sentence. I did only notice these errors post-visit while I was looking through my photographs.

Overall, I had a great day spending time with the photographs of Kennedy in Penrith. I would highly encourage those with even a slight interest in his presidency to make the journey and see the exhbition for yourself. Out of all the photographic exhibitions of Kennedy I have seen, this one ranks amongst the best. Everything from the location to the video sound permeating the rooms allowed it to be a great tribute to a fascinating President.

Today I ran my first ever museum event. It was a medical history seminar titled: Collecting, Curating, & Conserving. We had an excellent turn out of thirty professionals from all over New South Wales and even Victoria! It was a genuinely lovely morning that involved being surrounded by incredibly passionate people in the field of medical history. Throughout the day, we heard about the challenges medical collections face and how various collections have been formed and maintained.

In total, we had seven speakers present on a topic of their choice. This allowed for such a great diversity of topics from changing permanent displays on a shoestring budget, to identifying medical objects through in-depth research. I am going to provide an overview of each talk and try to summarise the main aim and findings.

1. Cate Storey – Transforming Archives: Making Stuff Relevant for the 21st Century and Beyond

Storey focused her presentation on the archives of the Royal North Shore Hosptial. Essentially, Storey is building the archives from scratch and wanted feedback and assistance from the seminar participants. Her presentation posed some significant questions to consider when creating an archive: What is the future of the archive? How do we sort the material? How do we catalogue the collection?

I have asked myself very similar questions while working with the Gwen Wilson Archives. Especially, how to sort the material. When you are faced with hundreds of boxes marked “to be sorted” it can be a huge undertaking just to work out how they should be arranged. Storey has achieved so much with the archives, rescuing old historical registers and re-organising a significant amount of material.

2. Monica Cronin – A Museum Without Walls: Taking the Museum Experience to the People

The Geoffrey Kaye Museum of Anaesthetic History in Melbourne has done incredible work reaching out to audiences through online platforms. This has included social media, blogs, and online exhibitions.

Cronin provided a great overview of the museum’s outreach work which are dot-pointed below:

• Victorian Collections – for example: https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/592795edd0cdd112c0f225c9
• Online exhibitions – http://anzca.online-exhibition.net/fellows/ – so proud to have played a role in creating this exhibition through my internship
• Blog: Pins & Needles http://www.geoffreykayemuseum.org.au/
• Twitter – for example contributing to Museum Week and Ask a Curator day

It was an engaging talk that certainly sparked the imagination and creativity of those in the audience.

3. Me – Meeting Standards: Transforming the Harry Daly Museum’s Permanent Display

It was then my turn to talk. I focused on how the permanent display of the Harry Daly Museum has transformed in order to appeal to a broader audience.

This has included reducing the amount of text in the display cases, creating new object labels, and moving objects into a more cohesive display. I was so grateful for the opportunity to present on my work and the feedback I received was overwhelmingly positive. I am now more confident than ever with the work I am completing and the direction the museum is going.

4. Elinor Wrobel – Morbid Anatomy Collection 1890s to 1985

The Sydney Hospital Museum has been on my must-visit list for too long. The presentation by Elinor Wrobel was an incredibly passionate ode to the museum and its place in medical history. Wrobel spoke on the history of medicine in Sydney and how it has skewed the significance of the hospital. I am excited to visit this museum and see all the wonderful objects with my own eyes.

5. Dr Bevan Stone – Medical Collection Query Service

There were two main parts to this presentation.

1. The past role of the History of Medical Museums specialist group
2. How to identify medical museum objects

With the latter, Stone showed a picture of an altar cloth from World War I that was seemingly unrelated to a medical history collection. On further research, he discovered it was a cloth embroided by Australian soldiers who were amputees. It was an incredible story!

6. Derek Williamson – How does a Medical Museum Visit Change People’s Health Intentions?

This presentation focused on how medical museums can change perceptions of health. Although Williamson had collected anecdotal evidence, he was hoping to produce data that could be presented to the University of New South Wales. He knew, for example, that visits could potentially change health behaviours. He shared a story of a teacher who after their visit quit smoking because of what they had witnessed in the museum. Considering it is a pathology museum, there are literal human lungs on display that have been affected by cigarette smoke.

After running some surveys and collating the data, Williamson discovered that primary school and high school students were affected by the messages in the museum. In fact, at an event called ‘Zombies in the Museum’, 86% of participants continued a conversation about the museum post-visit. This is great data suggesting a new significance of medical collections not only in telling the history of the discipline, but actually changing attitudes and behaviours.

7. Dr Rajesh Haridas – The ‘Lost’ Morton Inhaler

Our final speaker was Dr Rajesh Haridas who spoke on the Morton inhaler that was allegedly lost during the 1840s. So the first anaesthetic publicly administered was by this guy called William Morton – just so you know. After seeing a ‘replica’ in the archives of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Haridas exmained it in more depth discovering it was actually the original.

This was a great talk on how important it is to scrutinise the evidence.

I am so relieved today was successful and I cannot wait to hear back from the participants on their experience. To evaluate the seminar, I will be distributing a questionairre and hopefully will gain some further insight into what worked well and what could be improved on.

Now that the event is over, I can finally start focusing on the History of Medicine Conference coming up on the 12th of July in Melbourne. My talk will be revising the history of anaesthesia to include women and their stories!

Thank you to everyone who participated in the seminar!