Object Matters

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 Seashores opening at the Chau Chak Wing Museum in August 2022, they discuss a photograph in the collection taken in the late 1940s in preparation for the book Australian Seashores.

Professor William John Dakin (1883-1950), professor of zoology at the University of Sydney from 1929 until 1950, along with Elizabeth Pope and Isobel Bennett compiled the book Australian Seashores which was first published posthumously in 1952. Among the many photographs donated to the Macleay Museum collection in the 1980s by Dakin's family was an image of snapping shrimps taken in the 1940s.

Tony and Craig discuss the snapping shrimp and the discovery of how the shrimp is able to create a noise by closing its claw so rapidly it creates shock waves, the importance of natural history collections, curating natural history exhibitions, Dakin's work and legacy and the role of citizen scientists.

Guest: Dr Anthony Gill is a fish taxonomist, with decades of museum experience in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. He is Curator, Natural History Collections at the Chau Chak Wing Museum.

Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.

Object details: Photograph of two snapping shrimps with a third claw next used in the book Australian Seashores in 1952 [HP84.7.38.1]

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 the Hellenistic-Roman world, a depiction of a young boy contemplating a thorn as he removes it from the sole of his foot. The ‘original’ ancient bronze is now in the Palazzo del Conservatori in Rome. The Chau Chak Wing Museum is home to a bronze copy of the Roman statue produced by the Fondere Artistiche Riunite in the early 20th century. Between ancient Rome and 20th century Australia, the statue, and its many copies both ancient and modern, has inspired artists and storytellers. Kathleen and Craig discuss the long history of the bronze statue of the boy and its influence on the Renaissance and modern worlds and why the statue has become so popular.

Guest: Dr Kathleen Olive is a popular educator on Italian art, history and culture, and presents on these subjects at the Italian Institute of Culture, Sydney, the Art Gallery of NSW and across Australia as a national lecturer for the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society. For many years, she has led cultural tours to Italy, France, Spain and Japan, and she is an honorary research fellow in the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Sydney.

Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.

Object details: Bronze cast of Il Spinario (The Thorn-Puller), produced by the Fondere Artistiche Riunite, Naples, Italy in the early 20th century [NM2008.27]

The discussion also covers a photograph in the collection of a copy of Il Spinario in marble in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney photographed by Kerry & Co. between 1890-1915 [HP83.60.119]

The image is of its 3D recorded form accessible via Sketchfab.  

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 a number of Chau Chak Wing Museum objects in 3D to be used in digital teaching of undergraduate courses. 

Photogrammetry is a technique that creates accurate and fully textured 3D models from photographs. It can be used to record both landscapes and objects of all sizes; allowing 3D prints and orthoimages (scaled images without distortion or perspective). Madeline discusses the role of photogrammetry in archaeology and museum contexts, and the role of digital archaeology more generally. Together in depth they discuss how she has recorded one of the museum’s numismatic items, a silver coin from Classical Athens and the complexities of recording a small object n 3D through marrying together hundreds of individual photographs and then how that digital recording may be used to allow greater access to the collection. In the discussion they prove that a digital recording of object matters as much as the object itself when it comes to engagement, teaching and research.

Together they discuss new ways of seeing old objects, in celebration of National Archaeology Week.

Guest: Madeline Robinson is Support Officer for the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sydney. She has considerable archaeological field experience in Australia and abroad and manages the archaeology lab at the university. She also manages the @sydneyarchaeology social media account on Instagram and can be followed on her personal Twitter account @MGP_Robinson.

Host: Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.

Object details: Athenian silver tetradrachm, Athens, Greece, 449-404 BC. Obverse: Head of Athena facing right; reverse: owl standing facing right, olive sprig top left and moon to right. Acquired before 2004 [NM2004.655]

The image is of its 3D recorded form accessible via Sketchfab.

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 Power Collection by American artist Alan Sonfist. Sonfist is a US based artist most often associated with the birth of the Land or Earth Art movement. Crystalline enclosure was created in 1970, early in Sonfist’s career. The work features a glass globe with a mineral compound inside. As the air around it heats up, the compound sublimes into a gas eventually crystallising on the curved walls of the globe. When the crystal lattice increases its density, parts of the compound drop back down to pile again in the neck, whereupon the cycle begins again. We are invited by Sonfist to observe a process.
Nick explains how the work in Sydney was part of Sonfist’s broader project of making visible our entanglement in the processes of the natural world. Nick also explores his interest in the language of visual culture and its relationship with human psychology through the work in the Chau Chak Wing Museum. 
Guest: Nick Croggon is Events and Programs Officer at The Power Institute. He is an art historian, editor and doctoral researcher. He is co-founder of Discipline journal and a Sydney edition of Memo Review.
 
 

Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.
 
 

Object details: Alan Sonfist, Crystaline enclosure, mixed media - iodine crystals, para-dichloro benzene crystals, gases, silicone, glass, 1970. Purchased with funds from the J W Power Bequest 1970. J W Power collection, The University of Sydney, managed by Museum of Contemporary Art. [PW1970.39]  
Read Nick’s catalogue entry on Crystalline enclosure.

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 aerodynamic anti-G (CAAG) flying suit" in the collection.

Designed during World War Two at the University of Sydney by the Professor of Physiology between 1942 and 1955, named Frank Cotton, , the suit was produced in conjunction with the Royal Australian Air Force to minimise the effects of high-speed flying on pilots and to prevent blackouts. Representing a remarkable career Cotton (1890-1955) has also been inducted in the Australian Sports Hall of Fame for his contribution to sports science. 

Although the Cotton Suit was designed for aviation use, Lauren sees it conceptually as a precursor to sequential compression devices (SCDs) used in treatment of blood pooling and to improve blood circulation in the legs.Lauren asks us to challenge ableism within a museum context. Why do we not see the Cotton suit as a disability object? And what other disability objects may we see in museum and gallery collections? Can we rethink the conversation in museums about disability representation within material culture?

Guest: Lauren Poole is a writer and postgraduate student of the University of Sydney’s Museum and Heritage Studies programs. Lauren is a trained archaeologist and a disability advocate, who has published recently in ‘Growing Up Disabled in Australia’ And ‘Earth Cries: A Climate Change Anthology’. Follow Lauren @laurenlpoole on Twitter.

Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.

Object details: Parts from prototypes of the Cotton Aerodynamic Anti-G (CAAG) suit [SC1995.60.1-117]

Read more on the Cotton suit in this paper by Dr Peter Hobbins, on the challenges of preserving the suit in this blog and for an image of Cotton and the suit being worn by pilots during the war from the Faculty of Medicine’s collection visit here. 

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 the Boston Throne as a starting point they discuss the popularity of casting for educational and aesthetic reasons, the influence of casts on modern perceptions of the Classical past and the role of authenticity in collections and interpretations. The Boston Throne is three-sided marble relief sculpture now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts similar to the Ludovisi Throne and said to have been discovered in Rome in 1894. It has variously been interpreted as a mid-fifth century BC Greek original, a Roman marble copy and as a modern forgery. The Sydney cast would have been made in the early 20th century. Can we use casts, copies and replicas to understand the ancient past?

Guest: Dr Alina Kozlovski is a Curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and soon to take up the role of Lecturer of Digital Innovation (Ancient History and Archaeology) at the University of New England. Her research on plaster casts has also seen her work at the Powerhouse Museum as a MAAS Research Fellow in 2021. Follow Alina @AlinaKozlovski on Twitter.

Host: Dr Craig Barker, Head of Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.

Object details: Plaster cast of the Boston Throne; NM2008.23

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 interchanges and cross-pollinaion between China and England, the principal motif elements in Willow Pattern ceramics and how they a 19th century audience responded to them, as well as the extent to which such pieces offered their owners an opportunity to indulge in escapist fantasy, introducing a note of the exotic into the domestic.
 
Guest: Dr Alexander Burchmore, Lecturer Museums and Heritage Studies and Department of Art History, The University of Sydney. Follow @DrAlexBurchmore on Twitter.

Host: Dr Craig Barker, Manager of Education and Public Programs, Chau Chak Wing Museum and Director, Paphos Theatre Archaeological Excavations. Follow @DrCraig_B on Twitter and Instagram.

Object details: Chinese Willow Pattern Dish, 19th century, Qing dynasty. UA2012.918

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, and has a long fascination with butterflies. With over 250 known species the Jezebels, they are found from South East Asia to New Guinea and Australia. So what attracts Matthew to these deadly delights?In a wide ranging conversation they discuss the role of classical and Biblical history in the taxonomy of species, coloration and toxicity, how new species evolve, Matthew’s own journey from Malaysia to Australia and the unique role of mistletoe in ecology and as the Jezebels' foodplant.

Image: 18 specimens of six species of Australian Jezebel butterflies registered with numbers NHEN.65046 to NHEN.65139 and displayed in a snowflake arrangement. Starting from the top and moving clockwise, these species are the Black Jezebel Delias nigrina, Red-spotted Jezebel Delias aganippe, Red-banded Jezebel Delias Mysis, Yellow-banded Jezebel Delias ennia, Scarlet Jezebel Delias argenthona, and Imperial Jezebel Delias harpalyce.

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 and is currently working on a second project exploring the Hittite civilization of Ancient Turkey. Damien has selected from the collection a cylinder seal from Late Bronze Age Syria and the two of them discuss sealing iconography and functionality, personal identity in the ancient Middle East and international diplomacy during the Bronze Age.

Object Details: Cylinder seal, Levant region, 14500-1200 BC, NM52.54.1

View object online

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 exhibition Pacific Views. In this episode of Object Matters he joins host Dr Craig Barker on a personal journey to his homeland of New Britain as recorded in photographs in two albums taken in the late 1920s by an Australian banker in Rabaul. It was around the time Steven's father was born. In this wide ranging discussion Steven and Craig discuss language, poetry, music, culture, colonisation and the power of photography to capture a changing world.

Image: Photographs from album of views of Rabaul (HP2021.11.1-4)