Museums of History NSW
Traditional stonemason discusses his craft
updated
During this interactive and thought-provoking session your students will consider how we can understand and connect to place through art and how a place can mean different things, for different people.
We will investigate the museum’s place-based art and explore the current exhibition Coomaditchie: The Art of Place, created by the Coomaditchie United Aboriginal Corporation, with artworks that reflect life in and around the Coomaditchie Lagoon, near Wollongong.
Draw on historic records from the NSW State Archives, contemporary First Nations perspectives and archaeology to address the significance and the contested nature of the site.
Learn about a range of different techniques, which can be used to create art.
Finish the session with a creative arts activity – providing a framework to students so they can develop an artwork about a place and what it means to them.
https://mhnsw.au/learning/the-art-of-place/
Whether working on film and TV productions or historic houses and museums, what are the narratives that drive these interior designs and inspire the designers themselves? Melinda has sought inspiration from the collection of the Caroline Simpson Library when designing TV productions, including the recent Amazon Prime Video series The lost flowers of Alice Hart. Craig worked with the library in the reinterpretation of Everglades House, Leura, while Joanna used the library’s collection in the revitalisation of the drawing room at Vaucluse House.
The evening included a viewing of creative sources in the Caroline Simpson Library collection used for each project as well as presentations from the three speakers. Q&A will be led by Research Librarian Dr Matthew Stephens.
https://mhnsw.au/whats-on/exhibitions/coomaditchie-the-art-of-place/
Visitors can immerse in an audiovisual experience with atmospheric lighting, projected imagery and surround sound. From the comfort of a hammock, soak up the sounds of some of Sydney’s most interesting and diverse artists exploring a range of genres.
Find out more:
mhnsw.au/whats-on/events/sonic-spaces-2024/
2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the Caroline Simpson Library.
The Caroline Simpson Library began as the Lyndhurst Conservation Resource Centre in 1984. It was renamed in 2004 in recognition of the extraordinary cultural gift donated by the children of Caroline Simpson OAM (1930–2003) to the Historic Houses Trust of NSW (now Museums of History NSW). The gift included furniture, artworks, books and decorative arts from their mother’s collection, along with an endowment for the library. A keen collector, Caroline had a passion for colonial history and heritage and an eye for rare and significant material. This display draws from Caroline’s collection of objects related to the incredible voyage of Rose de Freycinet (1794–1832) aboard the French scientific vessel Uranie in 1817–20. It offers just a glimpse of the breadth and importance of the objects acquired by one of Australia’s great collectors.
On display until 12 July 2024
https://mhnsw.au/whats-on/exhibitions/celebrating-the-20th-anniversary-of-the-caroline-simpson-library/
Suzanne will discuss her research into the incredible story of the young Frenchwoman who was smuggled aboard her husband's ship, the Uranie, in 1817, becoming the only woman on the three-year scientific voyage around the world.
Rose's presence on the voyage was deliberately omitted from official narratives of the journey, and little was known about her life until recently. This talk will focus on a series of original images that demonstrate the process of removing Rose from the final publications.
The conversation will be hosted by Mel Flyte, Collection Discovery Assistant at the Caroline Simpson Library.
About Suzanne Falkiner
Suzanne Falkiner is a Sydney writer. After growing up on a sheep station in central-western NSW, she spent several years travelling in Asia, Europe and South America, and living in Paris, Umbria and New York. Suzanne is the author of 13 books, including Mick: a life of Randolph Stow, which was short-listed for several biography awards. It was while researching this last book that she discovered the story of Rose de Freycinet, as she walked on a remote beach at Shark Bay in Western Australia. Suzanne has always had a fondness for beachcombing in distant places, for which biographical research provides a wonderful excuse.
This hybrid in-person and online event focused on the colour curriculum of pioneering Sydney-based colour designer and educator Phyllis Shillito (1895–1980) of the 1940s to the 1970s.
In-person attendees examined the impressive collection of student exercises and notes created by designer Eva Fay when she was a student at the Shillito Design School in Sydney in the late 1970s, which were recently donated to the Caroline Simpson Library (CSL), as well as other Shillito portfolios held in the CSL and private collections.
In addition, three presentations established the context of Shillito’s teaching of colour. Artist and educator Jocelyn Maughan shared her recollections of Shillito as a teacher in the late 1950s and gave a critical assessment of Shillito’s approach to colour. Design historian Dr Catriona Quinn examines the broader context of Shillito’s impact on technical education and its relationship to the dynamic development of the Australian interior design profession. And Dr David Briggs discusses his research, conducted jointly with Eva Fay, into the sources of Shillito’s colour curriculum, based on the portfolios and notes on display.
Rouse Hill Estate
Book now: MHNSW.au/learning
integrating outcomes from History, PDHPE and Creative Arts, this program gives students the opportunity to learn first hand about what school life was like in the late 19th century.
Students dress in period costume – straw hats, plus cotton pinafores for the girls and sailor collars or coats for the boys – and then meet their schoolmistress or master to begin the school day. After saluting the British flag, the class is marched into the 1880s schoolroom, where they will sing the national anthem God Save the Queen and prepare to start the first lesson.
Throughout this immersive and engaging program, students take part in a recreation of late 19th-century classroom activities, led by highly-trained staff, who are also in costume and in character as 1880s school teachers. Hands-on activities include practising writing on slates, completing a science lesson, a sewing lesson and a drawing lesson as well as an outdoor physical education drill and (weather permitting) maypole dancing in the yard, enabling students to make vivid comparisons between schooling then and now.
Rouse Hill Estate
Book now: MHNSW.au/learning
This Stage 1 History program gives students the opportunity to explore the working areas of the former farm, and investigate what life would have been like for children living there in the late 1800s.
Students visit the old milking shed and explore the beautiful stables that the Rouse family built for their horses. They learn about the vital role of horses at the time, as an essential means of transport and for getting work done around the farm. They shift bags of chaff, polish saddles in the tack-room and hear what poet Banjo Patterson had to say about the Rouse ‘Crooked R’ brand.
As chores would have been part of daily life for children living on the farm in the late 1800s, students have the chance to experience some of these for themselves; feeding the chooks, hanging out the washing and pumping water.
Find out more: https://mhnsw.au/learning/garuwanga-gurad-stories-belong-country/
(updated Dec 2023)
Nareen is Associate Dean (Indigenous Leadership and Engagement) at the University of Technology, Business School, Sydney. She also leads Jumbunna Indigenous Education and Research Institute's Indigenous People and Work Research and Practice Hub which focuses on robust research and analysis, policy, practice, people and law reform. The Hub leads the National Indigenous employment sector and convenes the First Nations Employment Alliance.
Nareen Young bio:
Nareen is one of Australia's leading and most respected workplace Diversity practitioners, thinkers and influencers, lead and managed two Diversity peak bodies (Diversity Council Australia and NSW Working Women's Centre), with enormous impact and success, for nearly 15 years, and was then Director and Employment Lead at a large Indigenous consulting firm for three years.
She is influenced by both her Indigenous and culturally diverse heritages in this work and has received numerous awards and acknowledgements, including the inaugural Westpac 100 Women of Influence honour for Diversity, has commentated widely, presented both Nationally and internationally, and published.
Nareen has significant governance experience, spent a term as Director, Indigenous Business Australia and currently sits on the boards of BlakDance, Per Capita and Evolve Housing. She also sits on the Indigenous advisory bodies of National Australia Bank, Insurance Australia Group and Kindergarten Union, and in 2022 was appointed to the NSW Premier’s Women’s Economic Participation Straegy’s Expert Advisory Panel. She also reported very successfully to boards as an NFP CEO for nearly 15 years.
Nareen identifies diversity trends in the unique Australian context and is a significant collaborator in the diversity and employment sectors by bringing together people and organisations for the common good. She achieves practical, measurable outcomes utilising her ethical leadership style and, working with others, her thinking and concepts have had significant influence on employment diversity policy and practice. She is a committed, tenacious and active self-determinationist and leads in developing understanding in the employment sector as to its importance, and has worked at the intersection of the employment and human rights jurisdictions for many years.
Join the celebration of the very first NSW Aboriginal Languages Week 2023. This panel features NSW Aboriginal Languages Week Ambassadors, rapper BARKAA (Chloe Quayle) and comedian Andy Saunders, who will reflect on how Language has impacted their family, what insights have been gleaned through their Ambassador journeys, and why the celebration of Languages today is so important. Chloe will be joined by her mother, Cleonie Quayle, and Andy will be joined by his sister Joedie Lawler.
Recorded live from the Warren theatre at the Museum of Sydney on Thursday 26 October 2023
Introductions by Catherine Trindall( Gomeroi Murri Yinnar)
Deputy Chair, Aboriginal Languages Trust
Ms Catherine Trindall has had a distinguished career as an educator and is currently the President of the NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG). She is also Chair of the Tamworth Aboriginal Medical Service and Life member of the NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Incorporated.
more info: https://mhnsw.au/whats-on/events/first-nations-speaker-series-event/
Find out more: https://mhnsw.au/whats-on/exhibitions/celebrating-the-centenary-of-the-astor/
After World War II, Australian interior design education was shaped by a shifting social and economic landscape, and it was during this time the new profession of ‘interior designer’ emerged. Interior design’s association with craft, commercial and ‘feminine’ practices means it has often been overlooked or misrepresented in public discourse. In this lecture, Dr Catriona Quinn presents a history of interior design in Australia that emphasises the value of technical education and offers new insights into the issues faced by the profession today.
Focusing on rare mid-century student portfolios and archives held in the Caroline Simpson Library collections and the interior design program at the former East Sydney Technical College, Dr Quinn examines the work of the college’s graduates and their impact on Australian interiors.
Dr Quinn also explores the role of the private design schools that helped to shape interior design education in Australia. The lecture gives an inside view of training in post–World War II Sydney, when progressive colour theory and modernist design theory were taught within the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme (1942–52), a significant federal economic program.
With her extensive knowledge of the subject and her background as a former curator at the Caroline Simpson Library, Dr Quinn brings to life the stories of mid-century Australian interior decorators and educators and their contribution to our design history.
Find out more at https://mhnsw.au/whats-on/exhibitions/home-in-the-hunter/
https://mhnsw.au/whats-on/exhibitions/the-peoples-house-sydney-opera-house-at-50/
Images: Daniel Boud; Curtain of the sun, artist John Coburn, 1969–70. © The Coburn Estate; Jørn Utzon Sydney Opera House photograph. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW: PXA 590 (v13), npA25J41; Photo by Max Dupain, c1965–72. Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW: FL601561
Read more: https://mhnsw.au/stories/general/queering-the-interior-london-new-york-sydney-1882-1929/
Film produced by Katie Furlonger, Digital Content Coordinator, Museums of History NSW.
The series has produced fascinating discussions from contemporary authors, artists, curators, designers, and producers.
Fight for Liberty and Freedom
Speaker Professor John Maynard
Thursday 11 May, 6pm–7pm
Museum of Sydney
The series has produced fascinating discussions from contemporary authors, artists, curators, designers, and producers.
In Conversation with Tony Albert and Hayden Walsh
Thursday 13 April, 6pm–7pm
Museum of Sydney
Find out more and see related events https://mhnsw.au/whats-on/exhibitions/murmurations/
Presented at the Hyde Park Barracks 6-8 October 2022
Cutter and Coota, a new children’s play written by Bruce Pascoe and presented with Moogahlin Performing Arts, explores themes of sustainability, colonisation and how we care for Country.
Hyde Park Barracks
6-8 October 2022
Book now https://slm.is/cuttercoota
These school holidays experience the unlikely bond of Cutter, an ambitious rat, and Coota, a compassionate bandicoot, as they find freedom and friendship.
Cutter and Coota, a new children’s play written by Bruce Pascoe and presented with Moogahlin Performing Arts, explores themes of sustainability, colonisation and how we care for Country.
Hyde Park Barracks
6-8 October 2022
Book now https://slm.is/cuttercoota
These school holidays experience the unlikely bond of Cutter, an ambitious rat, and Coota, a compassionate bandicoot, as they find freedom and friendship.
Cutter and Coota, a new children’s play written by Bruce Pascoe and presented with Moogahlin Performing Arts, explores themes of sustainability, colonisation and how we care for Country.
Nathan ‘mudyi’ Sentance
Remembering and Re-storying. Storytelling approaches I have taken to confront uncomfortable histories.
How do we get audiences to engage with uncomfortable histories, especially histories related to the ongoing impact of settler colonialism? Join Wiradjuri librarian and museum educator, Nathan mudyi Sentance, who has been asking this question for over a decade as he discusses how he has worked to create more space in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums for First Nations representation and truth telling. And listen to his journey to examine new ways to get audiences to engage in uncomfortable histories and how instead of guilt or anger, audiences learning brutal histories were inspired to action.
Dr Leah Lui-Chivizhe
Science, mourning and loss: WJ Macleay & Erub in 1875
Historian and curator, Dr Leah Lui-Chivizhe is a Torres Strait Islander with enduring family connections to the eastern and western Torres Strait. Leah's current research focuses on how nineteenth century collections from the region can be useful for reconnecting Islanders with our pre-colonial histories of human and more-than-human relations. In January 2022 she joined the Social and Political Sciences program at the University of Technology, Sydney, where she is senior lecturer in Indigenous histories.
Hyde Park Barracks
6-8 October 2022
Book now https://slm.is/cuttercoota
These school holidays experience the unlikely bond of Cutter, an ambitious rat, and Coota, a compassionate bandicoot, as they find freedom and friendship.
Cutter and Coota, a new children’s play written by Bruce Pascoe and presented with Moogahlin Performing Arts, explores themes of sustainability, colonisation and how we care for Country.
Creating change within institutions and ourselves
Speaker Hayden Walsh
Wednesday 7 September, 6pm–7pm
Museum of Sydney
Learn more slm.is/firstnationsseries
Two ways of walking together, Science and Culture; A community based Aboriginal rock art project in the Blue Mountains NSW.
Speaker Wayne Brennan
Wednesday 3 August, 6pm–7pm
Museum of Sydney
About Wayne Brennan
Wayne is an archaeologist of Gamilaraay descent, who specializes in Aboriginal rock art and has lived and conducted research in the Blue Mountains for over 35 years. He has worked as an education officer, researcher and remote fire fighter for the National Parks and Wildlife Service since 1987. He currently works as an Aboriginal heritage consultant and is a visiting research fellow with the Australian Museum, Sydney.
Learn more slm.is/firstnationsseries
[i] La Sydney; [ii] La Wooloomooloo [sic]; [iii] La Illawarra; [iv] La Bong-Bong; [v] La Engehurst
Annie Gard (violin)
Daniel Yeadon (violoncello)
Neal Peres Da Costa (pianoforte)
Dublin-born Francis Ellard, Sydney’s earliest specialist music publisher, advertised his first sheet music titles late in 1835. Ellard engraved all of his later sheet music himself and had it printed in Sydney, but in this first instance, he commissioned his brother William in Ireland to arrange the music, print it there in Dublin, and ship it out to the colony to be sold. As Cavendish had done in this earlier set, the Ellards gave each of the quadrilles a local title. All five are based on tunes popular in the 1830s, including two still well-known today, in the first quadrille the grand march from Bellini’s Norma, and in the last the troop song The Girl I Left Behind Me.
‘On the Plains of Emu: Settler Art Music in Early NSW’, Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney, 27 February 2022. A concert presented by the Sydney Living Museums Foundation and Hearing the Music of Early New South Wales 1788-1860, Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney. Australian Research Discovery Project DP210101511 – 2021–24.
Annie Gard (violin)
Daniel Yeadon (violoncello)
Neal Peres Da Costa (pianoforte)
Dublin-born Francis Ellard, Sydney’s earliest specialist music publisher, advertised his first sheet music titles late in 1835. Ellard engraved all of his later sheet music himself and had it printed in Sydney, but in this first instance, he commissioned his brother William in Ireland to arrange the music, print it there in Dublin, and ship it out to the colony to be sold. The Ellards gave each of the quadrilles a local title and all five are based on tunes popular in the 1830s. ‘La Engehurst’ uses the troop song The Girl I Left Behind Me as its tune.
‘On the Plains of Emu: Settler Art Music in Early NSW’, Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney, 27 February 2022. A concert presented by the Sydney Living Museums Foundation and Hearing the Music of Early New South Wales 1788-1860, Conservatorium of Music, The University of Sydney. Australian Research Discovery Project DP210101511 – 2021–24.