(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).

This is about to change, as research and development of the Cover story: 60 years of Australian book design display, has drawn our attention to the changing look of the book and the dramatic changes which have shaped the design, layout, printing and production of Australian books over the six decades of the Australian Publishers Association Book Design Awards (1952-2012). As these Awards promote and recognise creativity, excellence and innovation in Australian book design and production, it seems highly appropriate that the Powerhouse Museum now preserves aspects of this important legacy.

Held in conjunction with the 2012 Book Design Awards event (Thursday 17 May) and the 60th anniversary of the Australian Publishers Associations (APA) Annual Book Design Awards (BDA), Cover story showcases a selection of award winning and highly commended books, plus numerous BDA catalogues. The image on the cover of the 1998 BDA catalogue (illustrated above) and the conceptual caption, ‘Books: the best thing since sliced bread!’ printed on the back cover, playfully and metaphorically highlight the relevance and significance of books and reading in everyday life. This catalogue was designed by Dean Lahn in collaboration with conceptual photographer Andrew Dunbar. APA invited Lahn to design the catalogue as his book, Body Piercing (a self initiated project produced in collaboration with Andrew Dunbar), won both the Best Designed Book of the Year and Best Designed Jacket of the Year categories of the 1998 BDA awards.

1998 Book Design Awards catalogue, designed and typeset by Dean Lahn, Lahn Stafford Design, cover photograph by Andrew Dunbar. Reproduced courtesy Australian Publishers Association

Judging of the Book Design Awards was tough in the early years as the Association tried to improve overall standards. The comment from the 1953–54 judges was typical: “We found examples of first class printing, good layout, good binding, good jacket designs, and good illustrations, but unfortunately all these virtues were seldom combined in the same book …”

By 1967–68 the standard had lifted. That year the judges commented: “Partly as a result of the competition, nearly all books submitted were the work of trained and responsible designers and fewer books are now left to the anonymous chances of the composing room”.

In recent decades, the standard of entries has been high and competition fierce.

In 1993, The Australian Dream: Design of the Fifties, designed by Colin Rowan, won the Best Designed Book of the Year (see below) and Refreshing: art off the pub wall, published by Allen & Unwin in association with the Powerhouse Museum (also designed by Colin Rowan) won Best Designed Paperback priced below $25.00 in 1990.

The Australian Dream: Design of the Fifties, designed by Colin Rowan, published by Powerhouse Museum, 1993

Photography books and books about nature have also featured prominently among the award winning books, but since the mid-1990s, the Best Designed Popular Reference Book and Best Designed Book of the Year categories have been dominated by cookbooks. By 2002 a trend had emerged for cookbooks not to feature food on the cover at all. Within this group, the strong graphics of Damien Pignolet’s design for French (2006) and David Thompson’s bold simple design for Thai Food (2002) stood out from the crowd. The judges’ commented that the whole design of Thai Food, ‘from the particularly lush hot pink Thai fabric cover to the beautiful internals — elevated this book from a cookbook to an object of desire’.

The children’s book category of the Awards has also been strong from the beginning, with the best childrens’ books often having a sophisticated sense of fun which blurs the boundaries between adult and children’s literature. The Museum’s Cover story display features memorable award winning childrens’ books from the early decades including Animal Talk and other stories (1954-55), Ombley-Gombley (1969-70) and Storm-Boy (1974-75), through to the outstanding children’s picture book of 2007 – Shaun Tan’s remarkable The Arrival. The 2007 judges’ were ‘unanimous in (their) appreciation of this extraordinarily beautiful, haunting and original work of art’.

Even though sales of ebook readers continues to accelerate, the late 20th and early 21st centuries may well be remembered as the golden age of luscious, highly tactile, coffee table books. BDA judges’ comments over the last 10 years reflect this: “this is a book to hold close and enjoy” (2010), “cleverly designed to include stroking, coveting and ultimately treasuring” (2007), “the luscious feel of the book conveys a genuine warmth” (2006), “the whole design elevates this from a cookbook to an object of desire” (2002), “the attention paid to every detail makes this a complete package” (2000).

Cover story: 60 years of Australian book design opened on 14 May and will be up at least through to the 24 June, and maybe longer. The Powerhouse Museum Research Library holds more BDA award winning books, and these are available for viewing by appointment. Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. Tel: 92170258

Post by Anne-Marie Van de Ven and Judith Matheson

Over the last six months or so the Powerhouse Museum has been going through a major revitalisation project. One result of all this activity has been the opening up of some large exhibition spaces. Given International Museums Day is just around the corner and the current level of interest within the museum surrounding exhibition development I thought it could be an opportune time to blog about this vital area of museum work and see how museums in general have been approaching the issue.

One of the most noticeable changes is the number of new, and affordable, technologies now available for the exhibition tool-box. While essentially a good thing trying to grapple with their integration into existing museum exhibition development processes is not always easy. But over the last year the Powerhouse has conducted a few of its own experiments such as the Minecraft Trial Program which ran at Thinkspace over the 2011-2012 Christmas Holidays.

Developed to inspire the younger audiences and to provide experiences that will make them want to return to the Museum this program was a great initiative. The museum felt the basic principles of the link into a lot of the themes and processes explored in our exhibitions. This included architecture, design, construction, materials, engineering, community engagement and sharing.

Another was the Lovelace Exhibition which integrated wonderful physical design and lighting with the Museum’s first extensive foray into handheld content delivery in conjunction with the exhibition development.

But across the Museum sector exhibitions development has tended firstly to focus on, what are our exhibitions going to be about and how do we get them on the floor? While both are valid and necessary questions when it comes to upgrading the museum’s exhibition space, changing audiences, competition from other leisure activities, and new technologies have expanded how museums can approach interactions with their audience.

This is not to say museums are rejecting exhibitions, but rather, these tools are changing some well established notions about how museum objects are interpreted and interacted with. Personally I think this is a think a really positive development and one which has the potential to bring more museum collections into spaces which can accessed by the broader public. I’m sure the display of objects on the museum’s floor will continue to be the primary focus of audience interaction. But I’m equally sure these displays will increasingly incorporate digital tools and new methodologies before, during, and after the objects are displayed on the floor.

What follows are some samples of museums and galleries who have started to have a bit of a rethink about the models they use to take objects out of museum store-rooms and place them in locations where visitors to the museum can then get access to them.

First up is an exhibition titled Public Property by the Walters Art Museum, in Baltimore. Created over December 2011 and January 2012 the museum used its ‘works of art’ site to ask the public to arrange and tag collections of artworks. The Walters’ exhibition team determined the popular themes (adornment, military, creatures and death) from these tags. They then held an online vote to decide on the exhibition theme ‘Creatures’. The museums then selected creature themed artworks for the public to vote on and 106 were selected to be part of the exhibition. The exhibition will be on from June 17–Aug. 19, 2012.

“Once the exhibition is open, there will be a variety of interactive elements to complement the chosen artworks,” said Walters Manager of Web and Social Media and exhibition team leader, Dylan Kinnett. “The exhibition vision, process and design are critical to changing perceptions and attitudes regarding museums by inviting civic participation in an intentional manner,” stated Manager of Family Programs and exhibition team leader, Emily Blumenthal. “We will also have a series of programs and events associated with the exhibition to invite visitors to become further involved with their community, their museum and their exhibition.”

Between Science Art and Design – Jer Thorp is an artist and educator from Vancouver whose digital art practice explores the many-folded boundaries between science and art. Jorp’s focus is on the humanising data to encourage people to think about how the data they generate everyday carries weight in reality. Currently data is still seen as boring and opaque for those outside the domain of geeks and economists. But Jorp’s believes this should be broadened out to link Science, Design, and Art to create affirmative and lasting narratives. This has a resonance with the sessions on exhibitions development which were held here at the Powerhouse Museums which also focussed on our collections (another big data set) and the way we need to develop stories about the collections which include a combination of science art and design rather than only one of these elements.

One example of how this use of data is incorporated into displays can be seen in the design of the September 11 memorial at ground zero in New York. Here the names of the victims are not arranged alphabetically but by relationships such as partners or co-workers. The names are arranged according to a process and algorithm which was used to created “meaningful adjacencies,” based on “relationship” details which include proximity at the time of the attacks, company or organization affiliations for those who worked at the World Trade Center or Pentagon, and approximately 1,200 requests from family members. Software developed by Local Projects was used to implement this arrangement.

Wiki Loves Art Nouveau is Europeana’s first user-generated exhibition to explore some of the finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture from across Europe. For those haven’t already heard of it Europeana represents a cross sector and country solution to accessing cultural heritage in a digital form. Currently it provides s a single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe. The content is sourced from broad array European cultural and scientific institutions who have signed into Europeana as partners and this big picture approach is seen by some as the next step in opening up the discovery of the world’s knowledge and cultural heritage.

Tsunagari is the main display at the entry to the Japan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation and is a giant globe of the Earth rendered in super high resolution exceeding 10 million pixels. It is the world’s first giant spherical display using organic EL panels. It is part of a projects which uses three themes, “(Geo-palette) Geo-Palette” “Geo-Cosmos (Geo-Cosmos)”, “(geo-scope) Geo-Scope”, to approach the Earth from diverse perspectives.

The International Council of Communication Design’s SEGD conference was held in March of this year in partnership with the V&A Museum. Keynotes for this symposium were David Adjaye (architect) and Kenneth Grange (industrial designer). The main theme for this year was how innovation and collaboration are radically changing design across many disciplines.

London was a bit of a stretch for my budget and so while I didn’t get to go to I do agree with their sentiment which suggests collaboration is a powerful influence in design today. Cybelle Jones, principal with exhibition design firm Gallagher & Associates and co-chair of SEGD’s International Symposium believes that while design teams are working across continents, cultures, languages, and disciplines they are also finding collaboration can lead to: unwieldy project teams, communication challenges, and dilution of design intent. While her thoughts are more focussed on product design the partnership with the V&A is clearly no accident as these changes to design processes also affect museum exhibition design.

Jones asks a question which could also resonate within the museum sector. Is design better and stronger created with one singular vision, or should it be democratic—bringing together diverse talents, expertise, and perspectives in a combined vision?

The winner of the 2012 TED prize “The City 2.0” reveals another interesting approach which could be applied to exhibition development. The suggestion here is that perhaps content could be developed and integrated across a city rather than just within the museum walls. This year the TED prize was not awarded to an individual, but to an idea, ‘City 2.0”. This is an envisaged city of the future … a real-world upgrade tapping into humanity’s collective wisdom promoting innovation, education, culture, and economic opportunity. Reducing the carbon footprint of its occupants and creating a place of beauty, wonder, excitement, inclusion, diversity, life.

Museums like the Powerhouse are an integrated part of the city’s infrastructure and as stewards of cultural heritage and promoters of learning are perfectly placed to collaborate to be a part of projects like this. City 2.0 gives grants to people around the world who are advocating on its behalf with the opportunity to collectively craft a wish which will make use of the $100,000 prize: a wish capable of igniting a massive collaborative project. Individuals or organizations who wish to contribute their ideas can submit a TED Prize wish on behalf of The City 2.0 or write to tedprize@ted.com

Many museum professionals believe the exhibition is the primary mechanism though which they broker their relationship with the broader public and visitors to the museum have traditionally been the focus group of the exhibition process. The question now is how much this relationship has changed and if so how are the digital and on-line experience constituting current visitor interaction with museum collections.

Finally there is another trend that will no doubt propel more and more collaboration across museums and communities. This is the loading of museum content being into third party sites which are not owned, or even managed by the museum. Examples of this include HistoryPin, Flickr, and Pintrest alongside making collection API’s available for third party development and integration into other platforms.

Geoff Barker, 2012

Portrait of Min-Jung Kim, Curator of Asian Arts & Design, Powerhouse Museum, Photo by Sotha Bourn

People often ask me what curators do. Usually my answer is “we research, collect, document and display objects.” However, this answer doesn’t seem to satisfy people who wonder what really goes on behind the scenes in the museums and galleries.

I picked a typical day during the development of an exhibition Spirit of jang-in: treasure of Korean metal craft <장인정신:한국의 금속공예> and recorded every thing I did that day. This is my diary on 9th of September 2011. It shows what curators do and gives an insight into exhibition development.

9:00 am Visit the construction site of the exhibition on Level 4

Construction site of the gallery, Photo by Min-Jung Kim

9:30 Meet with Sarah (Registrar) – art works from Melbourne arrived yesterday. Discussed a condition report and photos.

Sarah Pointon and Scott Winston (Registration ) working in the storage area. Photo by Min-Jung Kim

9:45 Discussion with Alysha (Assistant Curator) – Checked and commented on captions for contemporary works from Korea for the exhibition publication.

Alysha Buss, Assistant Curator for the exhibition working at her desk, Photo by Min-Jung Kim

10:10 Answer public inquiries re Museums’ Asian objects

10:13 Work on copyright for music to be played in the exhibition.

10:17 Discussion with Skye Mitchell (conservator) re scent to be used in the exhibition. The idea was to evoke a Korean environment with scents such as pine trees. It was later decided not to use scents because of conservation issues.

Samples of various scents, Photo by Skye Mitchell

10:18 Discussion (phone call) with the National Museum of Korea regarding the loan objects.

10:40 Meet with Vicki Berlinden (exhibition designer) – discuss object supports for display

Tim Morris (Conservator) holding an object support.Photo by Min-Jung Kim

11:00 Discuss marketing materials

11:40 Discuss Korean media preview with Lee Hyung ho (senior resident fellow from the Korean government)

A mock up of the exhibition billboard advertisement, Qantas domestic airport, Sydney. In situ image by Boccalatte

11:55 Visit the object storage area to check objects

Skye Mitchell (Conservator) condition checking contemporary objects in storage. Photo by Min-Jung Kim

12:12 pm Have lunch at my desk and work on exhibition theme labels

1 :00 Meet with Estee Wah (online developer) to discuss website – select images for the nine sections of the online exhibition.

Writing object information and working on exhibition layout and catalogue layout:Photo by Min-Jung Kim

1:45 Work on exhibition labels and catalogue text – correct texts and translate theme title into Korean

2:40 Visit the bathroom & make a cup of tea

2:46 Continue working on labels

Judith Matheson (Editor) places labels on a plinth before a showcase closes:Photo by Min-Jung Kim

4:15 Discuss contemporary sections in the exhibition with assistant curator

4:40 Receive a phone call from the National Museum of Korea

5:00 Work on marketing material

5:30 Discuss public programs with Young-soo Kim, Director of Korean Cultural Office in Sydney

‘Buchaechum’ or Korean Fan dance as a part of public program ‘Arirang: Echo of a Millennium’ on Saturday 29th October 2011:Photo by Min-Jung Kim

Tired and lost track ….

6:20pm going home

91/1114, Papercut Chrysanthemum flower, symbolising riches and honour (Fu gui hua), China, 1930-1940. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Chrysanthemums are often given as mothers day flowers in Australia, as they are in season in May. However they have a longer history, initially cultivated in China as a flowering herb as far back as the 15th century BC.

It is believed that chrysanthemums were brought to Japan in the 8th century and the Emperor adopted the flower as his official seal. There is a “Festival of Happiness” in Japan that celebrates them.
As a symbol of the sun, the Japanese consider the orderly unfolding of the chrysanthemum’s petals to represent perfection, and Confucius once suggested they be used as an object of meditation. It’s said that a single petal of this celebrated flower placed at the bottom of a wine glass will encourage a long and healthy life.

This hard-paste porcelain plate featured below was made in Japan in the late nineteenth century. With restrained design and profuse gilding, the plate is unusual for Japanese wares, suggesting that the piece was made for export to the Europe.

2005/201/92 Detail from plate, Arita, Japan, 1800-1870 Collection: Powerhouse Museum

The Hair decoration (kanzashi) featured below is part of a childs Kimono collection from the 1930s. Made of plastic the comb has two prongs with ten plastic bars cascading from a semicircular shape and attached to wire spring, there are two clusters of chrysanthemums (the third cluster of flowers is missing). The flowers are in red, pink, white and yellow with white or red centres.

2007/65/10 Hair decoration (kanzashi), childs, , Japan, 1930-1940. Collection Powerhouse Museum

Although grown for thousands of years in Asia, Chrysanthemums were not widely known in the rest of the world until the early nineteenth century, when plants were imported and hybridised in the UK. The flower was brought to Europe in the 17th century. Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), named the flower from the Greek word χρυσός chrysous, “golden” (the colour of the original flowers), and ἄνθεμον -anthemon, meaning flower.

Colours now range from white to pink, purple, yellow, bronze and everything in between. Flowers come in all shapes and sizes.

2011/50/1 Tenango (embroidery), made by the Otomi people, Tenango, Hidalgo, Mexico, 2008-2009,gift of Robert Sweica, 2011. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

The vibrant Mexican colours and motifs of the Otomi textiles have not escaped the eye of French fashion house, Hermes, which has translated them into beautiful embroidered scarves.

Through their project Hermes is now giving income and security to the skilled embroiderers of Central Mexico. Pictured is one of the original hand embroidered textiles or tenango given to the Powerhouse Museum by Australian collector, Robert Sweica in 2011. Sweica was so struck by the skilled and lively work that he brought a collection to Australia from the USA. The collection included 10 multicoloured pieces and 10 monochrome examples from white through to navy blue and tangerine. They were displayed in 2010 at the Barry Stern Galleries in Sydney.

Traffic congestion in a big city like Sydney is never far from the headlines and for those of us who need to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge it is a daily reality. But traffic congestion in cities is nothing new. In London in the 1630s the clogging of narrow city streets by the increased use of horse-drawn vehicles was causing considerable outrage amongst the populace.

A solution was found in the form of the sedan chair. Sedan chairs were introduced, probably from France, by Sir Sanders Duncombe who was given a patent for the exclusive rights to hire sedan Chairs in England for 14 years from 1634. Sir Duncombe had argued that “the lives and limbs of his majesty’s subjects were greatly endangered by the multitude of coaches in London and Westminster”. Sedan chairs quickly gained popularity. They were very useful for negotiating crowded, unsafe, narrow, winding and often filthy streets and were particularly used by “invalids, ladies and party goers”. Sedan chairs had the advantage of being able to be carried up and down stairs and could deliver the passenger from inside their own home to inside their destination (with their finery all in place) without having to step outside.

Wealthy people owned their own chairs which were carved, gilded and lined with silk or velvet. These were carried by two liveried servants often with a footman going ahead and shouting to clear the way. Some large elaborate chairs required four men. Sedan chairs were also available for hire. Chairmen were licensed and displayed a number in a similar fashion to modern day taxi drivers. Rivalry between public and private carriers was often fierce.

The popularity of sedan chairs later saw sedan chairs themselves blamed for causing congestion with chairmen accused of “treating the pavements as their own and pushing all others aside”. As a result in 1710, the number of sedan chairs allowed for hire was restricted to 200, although the limit was raised to 300 the following year.

Sedan chairs went out of use as roads improved and travel in carriages became more comfortable.

The Museum’s sedan chair is on display in the Transport Exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum Ultimo.

Chairmen demonstrating how a sedan chair was carried.
Image courtesy of Image Gallery, National Education Network, England.

2012/18/1 Prototype walking robot, Robug IV, designed and made at the Department of Mechatronics, University of Southern Queensland, Australia, 1995-1999. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

The Powerhouse Museum has an impressive and growing collection of robots. From a nineteenth century automaton to the Articulated Head currently featured in the Galleria section of the Museum, the study and collection of robots is something the Museum’s science curators take seriously, but also have an enormous amount of fun with; I mean, they’re robots!

Recently acquired was the Robug IV prototype walking robot. As the name suggests, Robug is the fourth generation of prototype self-ambulant robots, and as you can see from the videos of his predecessors, Robug IV certainly looks much more sophisticated, and more than a little bit Hollywood.

Robug was donated to the Powerhouse Museum by Professor Billingsley from the University of Southern Queensland, Department of Mechtronics. As well as being one of the nicest guys in science academia, Professor Billingsley has knowledge of robotics that spans several decades, and he has solved problems in some of the harshest environments on Earth: cleaning and maintaining nuclear power plant chimney stacks – of course, with robots. His research and development of robotics in Australia has empirically proven his theories on replicating animal mobility and applying it to robot mobility, and of course produced some of the coolest looking robots – real robots – in existence. The Museum also has the Robotoad III climbing robot, the Spider walking/climbing robot, and the Robocow robot , a robot used to train horses to cut cattle, in its collection, all the results of Professor Billingsley’s work.

An aspect of Robug IV of particular note is the large, highly accessible emergency stop button on his back. This was included in his design for practical and OHS reasons – Robug is large and has many moving parts, and may need to be stopped quickly for any number of reasons. But it is also emblematic of mankind’s tenuous relationship with its technological creations.

From governors like the one used on the Boulton and Watt beam engine 18432, to the braking system on automobiles, to logical, linear and fuzzy logic control systems, the power inherent in technology needs to be controlled, or else that ungoverned power will turn into a larger problem than the one that the technology was developed for overcoming is. The issue of technology becoming too big to handle is as old as technology.The luddites who destroyed mechanical weaving looms in the nineteenth century and Neil Postman’s theories on the over-reliance on information technology are obvious examples of the dread and reactivity that technology can instil in society. Further still is the constant theme in popular culture fiction of technology becoming self-aware and turning on its makers – HAL 900 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ash in Alien, and of course Skynet in The Terminator franchise have imprinted upon us their cautionary tales of giving digital entities too much power.

Robug IV is an ominous looking machine, even in stasis. Should the order to kill all humans be given, it’s handy to know there is a contingency, at least with him. The emergency stop button on Robug IV’s back is at once comforting, humorous, and absurd. But also so fitting, given its situation both physically, and metaphysically.

Robug IV, and several other robots will be on display in the Museum from May 2012. Along, of course, with the robots which are already featured in the Powerhouse Museum’s galleries.

Collection of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. 86/741. Gift of the State Rail Authority Archives, 1986.

Would you have guessed the mystery rail object on display in the Museum’s marquee at Steamfest this year? Visitors to this event held in Maitland, NSW, over the weekend of 28/29th April were encouraged to have a go.

Congratulations to Lucy Halpin of Branxton, NSW, who correctly guessed it was a railway foot warmer. McLaren patent foot warmers like this one were placed on the floor of railway carriages all around Australia to provide a little passenger comfort before carriage heating. The rectangular steel container worked a bit like a hot water bottle but instead of water contains 6½ kg of loosely-packed salt crystals, crystalline hydrated sodium acetate. It was a bi-product of the wine-making industry. After the foot warmer was heated in a furnace of boiling water for about 1¼ hours the crystals in the container became liquid.

There was a whole infrastructure set up at stations for the daily heating of foot warmers in special furnaces. In Victoria alone in 1935 there were 33 heating works. There are still the remains of one at Mudgee in NSW. As the contents slowly cooled it recrystallised and actually generated heat for between 8 to 10 hours.

Inside, the foot warmer contains a couple of small cast-iron balls. After 10 hours the container was picked up by the handle and given a good vertical shake which broke up some of the crystalline clumps and encouraged the foot warmer to burst back into life. Staff shook them en route when the foot warmers began to get cold.

The salt-filled foot warmer was invented by the French civil engineer, M.A. Ancelin, in about 1880 and used in Europe and Great Britain until the 1920s when replaced by steam heating from the train’s locomotive. They were first used on NSW trains in 1891 and were still seen in some of our train compartments until 1982! First class compartments were issued with two warmers and second class only one. Makes you wonder how many romances began sharing a railway foot warmer! Under rigid bureaucratic railway regulations the foot warmers were only deposited in NSW carriages between 1 May and 30 September. Too bad if there was a sudden cold snap or a late start to spring for passengers travelling to icy Orange or Arctic Armidale.

Dolls house "Charlaine", 1946. Gift of Elaine Molloy, 2009. Powerhouse Museum Collection, 2009/32/1.

What do ANZAC Day, The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper and this dolls house in the Museum’s collection have in common? The answer is a heartfelt story which began when Charlie Sellers, who worked as a linotype foreman in the compositing section of the Herald, promised to build his youngest daughter, Elaine, a dolls house.

Charles (Charlie) Thompson Sellers was too young to enlist in the First World War so he put his age up. He served in the 10th Field Company Engineers of the AIF. By the time the Second World War broke out in 1939 he was married with two young children and at 43 too old to enlist. This time he put his age down by 9 years and served in the 2/6 Field Company of the Royal Australian Engineers where he rose to Staff-Sergeant.

Charlie first saw action in the Middle East but in 1942 his battalion was recalled to the Pacific. After the Japanese invaded Java he was taken prisoner and interned in Glodok Prison, Batavia. After that he was sent by ship from Java to Moulmein in Burma. On board the unsanitary conditions caused much illness. For two years from October 1942 he worked on the construction of the notorious Burma-Thailand railway and on New Year’s Day, 1944, was sent to Tamarkan Camp in Thailand where he worked continually repairing a nearby 7-span steel bridge after regular bombing raids by Allied pilots.

By the end of the War in the Pacific on 2 September, 1945, the Herald had five staff members in POW camps and all were thought to have survived. There was much euphoria celebrating the end of the War and families eagerly looked forward to being reunited. Tragically for the Sellers family this was not to be and news of Charlie’s death filtered through a month after the Japanese surrender. He had died 8 months earlier of Cerebral Malaria on 28 January, 1945, and was buried in the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, 129 km NW of Bangkok, with full military honours.

Tributes to Charlie came in, one particularly from the War Correspondent, R.D. Rivett, who said:

‘I first met Charlie at the Bicycle Camp, Batavia [now Jakarta], in April 1942. In October that year we were moved to Burma and, after the gruelling [trip] on the Jap hellships, Charlie was put into the base hospital at Thanbyuzayat. Though very ill, he took charge of water distribution for the whole camp of 3,000 men, besides working selflessly in the interests of his mates in a hundred other ways. … On June 15 in the second raid by Allied planes on the hospital a number of P.O.W.s were killed, and Charlie had a narrow escape, being blown through the air by a blast for some distance without suffering a scratch. The hospital was then abandoned and Charlie and thousands of other sick men had to carry their gear out into the jungle for six or eight miles to a ruined camp where we slept in the open without proper roofs, through two of the wettest weeks of the rains. I’ll never forget staggering into this camp, and finding Charlie already there supervising the distribution of food to the exhausted men … Later, at the 30-km and 55-km Hospital camps Charlie again proved himself a bad patient but a sterling man by working ceaselessly to assist the M.O.s [Medical Officers] and camp staff in looking after the sick. At the end of 1943, just before we were brought out of the Burma jungle, Charlie was very sick with pellagra, chronic malaria and malnutrition. But in Thailand, at the Tamarkan camp, things were much better and for most of the next year, he was very bright and ceaselessly active looking after ‘his boys’ in the Tamarkan hospital. I said good bye to Charlie on January 5, 1945, when I was transferred to another camp a few miles away, [Charlie died three weeks later]. Charlie Sellers will not be forgotten by anyone who knew him. He has written his name on the history of the Australian forces in the Burma prison camps and his pals are immensely proud of him. He made me proud to be a fellow newspaper man and prouder still to be his friend.’

Charlie had been a very popular staff member at the Herald, a great organiser and always at the centre of service to others. The dolls house was built by Charlie’s friends there after the War. It’s thought that by doing something for the family of their lost work mate probably helped a little in their grief. It’s hard for us to imagine today the heartache felt in every street and town by the grieving mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and wives and children left without fathers. The dolls house is representative of the anguish felt by many people at the loss of colleagues in work places all over Australia during the Second World War.

Detail of the dolls house showing its name plate.

The dolls house was formally presented to 11 year-old Elaine Sellers and her family at a special ceremony at the Herald offices in 1946. It doesn’t look like the typical commercially-made dolls houses of the 1940s but a model of an actual building constructed with traditional house-building techniques. It’s even got a little separate free-standing outside toilet complete with a roll of toilet paper hanging up inside the door. (Many Australian homes at the time were still not connected to the sewer). Also, above the front door is a small brass name plate. (Naming houses was common place before house numbering). It’s called ‘Charlaine’, a combination of Charlie and Elaine, so their names would be joined forever.

Elaine kept the dolls house for 63 years until donating it recently to the Museum. When I acquired it she was concerned that Charlie’s story should be told and his memory perpetuated. I reassured her that when we bring objects into the collection recording their stories is vitally important as it adds immeasurably to the life and soul of the objects. So on ANZAC Day 2012 we remember Charlie Sellers through his daughter Elaine and her dolls house made by the men and women of the Herald.

Echo of a millennium Korean dancers performing at Powerhouse Museum 2011. Photography Sotha Bourn

“Ask Koreans … what appeals in Korean music and typical responses will focus on feelings … Korean music tugs at the heartstrings. Korean music – and, by extension, Korean musical instruments… – alone reflect the air, the water, and the soil of the Korean peninsula.” (Howard 1995: 9)

This photograph was taken at a traditional Korean performance at the Powerhouse Museum last year, coinciding with the opening of the Spirit of jang-in: treasures of Korean metal craft exhibition. If you look at the two musicians in the centre of the stage, you can see that they are each playing a gong, one small and one large.

There are two traditional Korean gongs in the Museum’s collection, similar to the ones shown above, which were a gift in 2000 from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Korea.

2000/104/11 Kkwaenggwari, small gong, bronze, Korea, 2000. Collection: Powerhouse Museum: Photography Sotha Bourn

The small gong is called a kkwaenggwari (or ggwaenggwari in the Revised Romanisation) and is played by the band leader, who determines the jangdan, that is, the rhythmic cycle or pattern. The ggwaenggwari is played by holding it in the left hand, with the musician’s fingers held against the back to dampen the sound, and struck with a wooden stick in the right hand. The resulting sound is clear, sharp and high pitched. Interestingly, it is thought that the Korean names of both of these gongs are onomatopoeic.

2000/104/12 Ching, large gong, bronze, Korea, 2000. Collection Powerhouse Museum. Photography Sotha Bourn

The large gong is called a ching (or jing in the Revised Romanisation) and is used for accents and to keep the band in time, due to its resonant sound. It is played by holding the cord by the left hand and striking with a soft, covered mallet in the right hand.

Percussion instruments like these gongs are vital in traditional Korean music, especially folk music, where the essential feature is rhythm. Reports dating to the Joseon Dynasty describe how gongs were used in rural areas to cheer and encourage the workers in the fields, especially during the weeding season (Howard 1995: 55, 59).

These two gongs are made of yugi and were created by the banjja or hammering technique. Yugi is an alloy created from a unique ratio of 71.43% copper to 28.57% tin. Bangjja yugiware is valued for its strength, golden hue, antibacterial properties and ability to change colour if in contact with poisonous substances – very useful for food bowls and containers! A scientific study into the antibacterial action of yugi, conducted by Lee Eun Jin and Park Jong-Hyun, exposed copper, bronze, stainless steel and tin to the cultures of Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli O157, Enterobacter sakazakii and Bacillus cereus. They found that “…the bronze alloy [yugi] may be more effective to reduce the cross-contamination of S. Typhimurium, E. coli, and E. sakazakii than stainless steel in food processing surface.” (Lee & Park 2008: 309) While the market for traditional bangjja yugi tableware declined during the middle of the twentieth century, due to competition from plastic and stainless steel, bangjja yugi instruments remained in demand, as only they could make the desired sound.

Photograph Kim Kyung Sang

The bangjja process requires intense labour, highly developed knowledge and the collaboration of many skilled craftsmen, or jang-in. It begins by melting the specific ration of copper to tin, mentioned above, to create the yugi. The molten metal is poured into a stone mould, creating a disc shape called a baduk.

Photograph by Kim Kyung Sang

The baduk is stretched by first heating it in the forge and then placing it on to the stake to be hammered. This hammering is done in a specific order by a team of three craftsmen, while the captain turns the baduk regularly to ensure it expands evenly.

Photography by Kim Kyung Sang

The baduk is hammered, stretched and straightened many times until it reaches its finished design, is heated again and then dropped into water to increase its strength. This work was traditionally done only at night, as the exact colour of the heated metal, which indicates its malleability, needed to be seen. The surface can then be made smooth and the black oxidised layer shaved off, giving the bangjja yugi object its characteristic shiny, golden surface.

This ggwaenggwari and jing connect different subject areas – culture, social history, science, craftsmanship, design – to create a story that is characteristic of the Powerhouse Museum. How many stories can these two gongs tell? There are many more that could be told, but this will have to wait for another time.

Alysha Buss, Curatorial Volunteer

References:
Lee, Eun Jin and Park, Jong-Hyun, 2008, ‘Inactivation Activity of Bronze Alloy Yugi for Reduction of Cross-Contamination of Food-borne Pathogen in Food Processing’, Journal of Food Hygiene Safety: 23 (4), pp. 309-313. See http://www.foodhygiene.or.kr

Howard, Keith, Korean Musical Instruments, Oxford University Press: New York, 1995