Object Matters

By Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney

Arts Natural Sciences History Visual Arts

What's Object Matters about?

The Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney's monthly podcast series. Host Dr Craig Barker asks guests to choose any one item to discuss from the museum’s collections of art, archaeology, natural history, science and culture.

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Object Matters episodes:

12.23.2023
52: The statue of William Charles Wentworth and Adelaide Ironside
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by historian and author Dr Kiera Lindsey. Together they discuss her new book on colonial Sydney artist Adelaide Ironside titled Wild Love. Together they examine speculative history, writing...
11.27.2023
51: Fragment of terracotta cult statue from Cyprus
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Dr Anastasia Christophilopoulou, an archaeologist and curator at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the 2023 Sir Charles Nicholson Lecturer. Together they discuss the Being An Islander...
11.01.2023
50: Heba Abd el-Gawad on Rethinking Egyptian Antiquities in Museums
In this special episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Egyptian archaeologist Dr Heba Abd el-Gawad. Together they discuss the unique role ancient Egypt plays in museums globally, the missing modern Egyptian voice in ancient Egyptian...
10.20.2023
49: Transport amphora with shell encrustations
For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Dr Natali Pearson of the University of Sydney's Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC). Natali is a critical heritage scholar, so together they discuss her work on the...
10.10.2023
48: Researching the Dru Drury butterfly collection
For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by zoologist and 2023 Macleay Miklouho-Maclay Fellow Dr Angel Luis Viloria Petit, who has recently completed his research in Sydney, examining historic collections of butterflies. The Chau Chak...
09.22.2023
47: Judy Birmingham and the Archaeological Excavations at Irrawang
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Chau Chak Wing Museum intern Isabella Trope. Isabella is a student at Macquarie University and has been researching a collection of ceramic sherds in the museum's education...
08.25.2023
46: UMAC and University Museums in the 21st Century
As the Chau Chak Wing Museum gets set to host the UMAC2023 conference, for this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by UMAC President and Chau Chak Wing Museum Research Fellow Dr Andrew Simpson. UMAC University Museums...
08.18.2023
45: Carte-de-visite; photograph of the bird 'Didunculus strigirostris'
For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Chau Chak Wing Museum colleague Jan Brazier, the Curator of History Collections. Together they discuss a carte-de-visite featuring a photograph of a bird taken by Sydney studio...
07.31.2023
44: Tracey Hands Up, by Michael Riley (1986)
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Chau Chak Wing Museum colleague Julian Woods, the museum's Public Engagement Co-ordinator. Julian discusses a photograph in the collection, acquired from the University of Sydney Union art collection...
06.25.2023
43: Two early x-ray tubes made by Harry W Cox
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Chau Chak Wing Museum colleague Kelsey McMorrow, who is curatorial assistant, science collections. Kelsey discusses two x-ray tubes made in the early twentieth century. Together they discuss the...
05.22.2023
42: The Nicholson Hermes
Marking National Archaeology Week 2023, in this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Associate Professor Lesley Beaumont, a classical archaeologist in the School of Humanities, in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the...
04.16.2023
41: Two ancient Athenian vases depicting dogs
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Classics PhD candidate and 2023 Fellow of the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens Alyce Cannon. They discuss two ancient vases from Athens relevant to Alyce's current doctoral...
03.22.2023
40: Penelope & the Seahorse: Artist Mikala Dwyer
In this special episode of Object Matters, hear a live recording of a public event held in March 2023, when visual artist Mikala Dwyer is interviewed by Toni Ross about the Chau Chak Wing Museum's fourth contemporary art project titled...
03.14.2023
39: Coin of Roman Emperor Nerva and solar eclipses
For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by university administrator, historian and former museum administrator Dr Toner Stevenson. Toner is the co-author with Dr Nick Lomb, of the new book Eclipse Chasers (2023). Using a coin...
02.14.2023
38: An Electrotype of an ancient Lydian coin
On this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by art historian and current University of Sydney Museum and Heritage Studies Program postgraduate student Dr Ksenia Radchenko. Ksenia is also a museum educator. Ksenia gained her PhD...
01.08.2023
37: Two Ancient South Italian Red-figure Fish Plates
For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Classicist and Greek cultural historian Professor Alastair Blanshard, from the University of Queensland. They discuss two of Alastair's favourite vases in the Chau Chak Wing Museum collection:...
12.13.2022
36: Ancient Egyptian stele
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Egyptologists and archaeologists Dr Melanie Pitkin and Pauline Stanton to discuss stelae and what they can tell us about ancient Egyptian society. Focusing on a stele (NMR.53)...
11.25.2022
35: Lego Tutankhamun and Lego in a museum context with The Brickman
In this episode of Object Matters, the Brickman, Ryan McNaught joins host Dr Craig Barker to discuss his recent build currently displayed in the Chau Chak Wing Museum, Lego Tutankhamun. Together they discuss his career as a professional Lego builder, why...
10.05.2022
34: Rethinking Ancient Egyptian Collections
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by museum archaeologist Associate Professor Alice Stevenson to discuss museum archaeology and a number of projects Alice is directing which is examining Egypt's dispersed heritage and how museums...
08.15.2022
33: Lantern Slide Portraits of King, Queen, Prince and Princess of Wales
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by cultural historian Dr Cindy McCreery. 2022 is a particularly important year for the British royal family with the Platinum Jubilee. It is also a period of transition...
07.25.2022
32: Professor Dakin's photograph of snapping shrimps
For this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Curator of Natural History Collections at the Chau Chak Wing Museum Dr Anthony Gill. In the lead up to National Science Week and the new exhibition Australian...
06.07.2022
31: Bronze Cast of Il Spinario
This episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Italian renaissance historian Dr Kathleen Olive to discuss Il Spinario, or the ‘Boy with Thorn’. Il Spinario is one of the most famous works of bronze to survive from...
05.15.2022
30: Photogrammetry recording of an Athenian tetradrachm
This episode of Object Matters marks National Archaeology week. Host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Madeline Robinson, Support Officer for the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sydney. In recent years Madeline has overseen a project of recording...
05.04.2022
29: Alan Sonfist's Crystalline enclosure, 1970
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by art historian and author Nicholas Croggon. They speak on the Power Institute, the Power Collection and the Light and Darkness exhibition. Nick discusses a work in the...
04.05.2022
28: Parts from prototypes of the Cotton Aerodynamic Anti-G (CAAG) suit
In this episode of Object Matters Lauren Poole, a writer and disabled postgraduate student of museum studies at the University of Sydney joins host Dr Craig Barker. Together they speak about the more than 100 rubber fragments of the "Cotton...
03.14.2022
27: Plaster Cast of the relief Boston Throne
Host Dr Craig Barker is joined by classical archaeologist Dr Alina Kozlovski to discuss the tradition of plaster casts of Greek and Roman antiquities popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using the Nicholson collection's century old cast of...
02.01.2022
26: Chinese Willow Pattern Dish
For Lunar New Year 2022, Object Matters host Craig Barker is joined by art historian and art writer Dr Alex Burchmore. They discuss this 19th century Chinese Willow Pattern dish and explore how it represents a complex series of cultural...
12.16.2021
25: Deadly Delights - An arrangement of Jezebel butterflies
In this episode of Object Matters Matthew Huan joins host Dr Craig Barker to discuss several Australian Jezebel butterflies (genus Delias) from the museum’s Macleay Collection. Matthew is a Museums Collections Officer and entomologist at the Chau Chak Wing Museum,...
12.02.2021
24: A Late Bronze Age Cylinder Seal
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Damien Stone. Damien is an archaeologist and works in the Collection Management team of the Chau Chak Wing Museum. He is author of Pomegranate: A Global History...
11.16.2021
23: The Pearson photographic albums of New Britain
Steven Gagau is an archivist and researcher with PARADISEC (the Pacific And Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures) - a digital archive of languages from the Pacific. Steven is also a co-curator of the Chau Chak Wing Museum's...
11.05.2021
22: Applied Arts
Cultural producer and artist Dr Sarah Goffman joins host Dr Craig Barker in this episode of Object Matters to discuss her current exhibition at the Chau Chak Wing Museum titled Applied arts. In this episode they discuss Sarah’s creative processes,...
10.05.2021
21: Campanian red figure bell krater by the Nicholson Painter featuring a warrior
In this episode of Object Matters host Dr Craig Barker is joined by Mediterranean archaeologist and Project Officer of the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens Dr Yvonne Inall to discuss her research into ancient spears and the Chau Chak Wing...
09.07.2021
20: Hongi Hika’s wooden bust
Ngāpuhi leader and warrior, Hongi Hika (c. 1772 – 1828) was an important figure in Māori history. Hongi Hika successfully negotiated trade and missionary activities in the early part of the 19th century, living in Sydney from 1814 to 1819....
08.12.2021
19: The faience shabtis of Djedher
Michelle Whitford is a doctoral researcher in Department of Physics and Astronomy at Macquarie University who has been conducting research on thousands of ancient Egyptian objects made from faience, including many from the Nicholson Collection at the Chau Chak Wing...
07.07.2021
18: The Thylacine
Matthew Gibbs wears many hats. For eleven years he served as President for the Friends of the Nicholson Collection, but he is also the General Manager, Media and Communications at the ASX, a collector, and a lover of Shakespeare. He...
05.28.2021
17: The Future of Museums
18 May 2021 was International Museums Day, an annual celebration created by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), designed to raise awareness about museums and their role in enriching culture and sharing knowledge. The theme for 2021 was The Future...
05.21.2021
16: Thomas Hikade on Sir Flinders Petrie’s Diopolis Parva seriation chart
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) is an important and somewhat controversial figure in the history of archaeology. The grandson of Matthew Flinders, Petrie rose from a surveyor to becoming the Professor of Egyptology at the University College London, where...
05.06.2021
15: The Collection Managers
Behind the scenes it takes a mighty team to care for the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s vast collections. In this episode, Craig Barker invites nine CCWM Collection Management staff members to discuss how they document, digitise, register, monitor and care...
04.08.2021
14: Dr Seppi Lehner on an Early Dynastic copper alloy axe from Ur in Iraq
Middle Eastern archaeologist from the University of Sydney Dr Joseph ‘Seppi’ Lehner speaks to Dr Craig Barker about a number of bronze and copper alloy objects in the Museum collection, recovered in the British Museum and University of Pennsylvania excavations...
03.28.2021
13: Two WWI photographs by Frank Hurley
In this special episode of Object Matters, Dr Craig Barker is joined by Toni Hurley, teacher, educator, historian, one-time president of the History Teachers Association and known to generations of school students as a co-author of the Antiquity series of...
03.03.2021
12: Cellist by Walter Bowring
In this episode of Object Matters Dr Craig Barker is joined by Chris Jones the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s Collection Manager, Documentation. An oil painting by Walter Armiger Bowring (1887-1971) in the museum’s art collection titled Cellist of c. 1927 has...
02.23.2021
11: On artists Lindy Lee and Wang Youshen
Dr Shuxia Chen, Curator of the China Gallery at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, joins Dr Craig Barker to welcome the Year of the Ox with two artworks from the collection. Photocopy works by Chinese-Australian artist Lindy Lee and Beijing...
02.02.2021
10: A Pompeian wall painting fragment
Diana Wood Conroy, Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts at the University of Wollongong is an artist, author and archaeologist with a long connection to the Chau Chak Wing Museum collections - as an undergraduate student in the 1960s she assisted...
01.28.2021
9: Neo Assyrian ivory plaque from Nimrud in Iraq
Conservation is one of the most important and often most misunderstood roles within a museum. In this episode of Object Matters Dr Craig Barker is joined by the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s former Conservator Alayne Alvis to discuss the function...
12.01.2020
8: Promesse de mandat territorial
Museums often amass much ephemeral material as well as collection objects; these ‘minor’ pieces can enhance our understanding of the broader pattern of collecting. In this episode, Dr Craig Barker is joined by Candace Richards, Assistant Curator of the Nicholson Collection....
11.19.2020
7: Cerussite specimen from Broken Hill
Director David Ellis joins Dr Craig Barker to discuss his love of mineralogy and the remarkable history of a mineral from deep in the earth’s past, and its journey from Broken Hill to the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Cerussite is...
10.08.2020
6: Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay’s jar of neurological specimens
What can a jar of tiny brains tell us about human history and the role of museums in contextualising colonisation? In this episode, Dr Craig Barker is joined by Dr Jude Philp, anthropologist and Senior Curator of the Macleay Collections. Together...
09.02.2020
5: Deep time in the Sydney basin
Deep time is a geological concept - the idea of unimaginable lengths of time. Our guest this episode is Matt Poll, Curator of Indigenous Heritage at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, who selects a stone axe to illustrate the deep...
08.04.2020
4: JW Power and Femme à L’ombrelle
Senior Curator of the University Art Collection, Dr Ann Stephen introduces us to Dr John Joseph Wardell Power (1881-1943), painter, author, medical doctor and philanthropist. In this episode, Ann introduces his life and work by focusing on a single painting,...
07.01.2020
3: The scallop’s gaze: visual culture in the aquarium
Art historian Dr Ann Elias came across the haunting image of a scallop in an aquarium while researching ocean histories and early 20th century underwater photography. Captured by the camera while opening its valves, the scallop almost appears to be...

What's Object Matters about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Object Matters episodes:

52: The statue of William Charles Wentworth and Adelaide Ironside

51: Fragment of terracotta cult statue from Cyprus

50: Heba Abd el-Gawad on Rethinking Egyptian Antiquities in Museums

49: Transport amphora with shell encrustations

48: Researching the Dru Drury butterfly collection

47: Judy Birmingham and the Archaeological Excavations at Irrawang

46: UMAC and University Museums in the 21st Century

45: Carte-de-visite; photograph of the bird 'Didunculus strigirostris'

44: Tracey Hands Up, by Michael Riley (1986)

43: Two early x-ray tubes made by Harry W Cox

42: The Nicholson Hermes

41: Two ancient Athenian vases depicting dogs

40: Penelope & the Seahorse: Artist Mikala Dwyer

39: Coin of Roman Emperor Nerva and solar eclipses

38: An Electrotype of an ancient Lydian coin

37: Two Ancient South Italian Red-figure Fish Plates

36: Ancient Egyptian stele

35: Lego Tutankhamun and Lego in a museum context with The Brickman

34: Rethinking Ancient Egyptian Collections

33: Lantern Slide Portraits of King, Queen, Prince and Princess of Wales

32: Professor Dakin's photograph of snapping shrimps

31: Bronze Cast of Il Spinario

30: Photogrammetry recording of an Athenian tetradrachm

29: Alan Sonfist's Crystalline enclosure, 1970

28: Parts from prototypes of the Cotton Aerodynamic Anti-G (CAAG) suit

27: Plaster Cast of the relief Boston Throne

26: Chinese Willow Pattern Dish

25: Deadly Delights - An arrangement of Jezebel butterflies

24: A Late Bronze Age Cylinder Seal

23: The Pearson photographic albums of New Britain

22: Applied Arts

21: Campanian red figure bell krater by the Nicholson Painter featuring a warrior

20: Hongi Hika’s wooden bust

19: The faience shabtis of Djedher

18: The Thylacine

17: The Future of Museums

16: Thomas Hikade on Sir Flinders Petrie’s Diopolis Parva seriation chart

15: The Collection Managers

14: Dr Seppi Lehner on an Early Dynastic copper alloy axe from Ur in Iraq

13: Two WWI photographs by Frank Hurley

12: Cellist by Walter Bowring

11: On artists Lindy Lee and Wang Youshen

10: A Pompeian wall painting fragment

9: Neo Assyrian ivory plaque from Nimrud in Iraq

8: Promesse de mandat territorial

7: Cerussite specimen from Broken Hill

6: Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay’s jar of neurological specimens

5: Deep time in the Sydney basin

4: JW Power and Femme à L’ombrelle

3: The scallop’s gaze: visual culture in the aquarium

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