Of Love & War

Uploaded to Flickr Commons on November 12, 2009by Australian War Memorial collection

As we have a wartime exhibition idea on the books I thought you might be interested to know that there are a number of new exhibitions about on this topic. They are not performing arts related of course but they do examine the social impact of war. The first is Of Love and War at the Australian War Memorial. The exhibition features photographs, artworks, letters and keepsakes and looks at the impact of war on relationships and 'the ways in which Australians incorporated affairs of the heart into their wartime lives'. If you can't make it to Canberra it is worth checking out the photostream on Flickr Commons.

Closer to home you might like to see Over-Paid, Over-Sexed & Over-Here? at City Gallery in the Melbourne Town Hall (this link takes you to the associated website). This exhibition explores the myths surrounding the American marines stationed in Melbourne during 1943 and has been curated by Kate Darian Smith of Melbourne University who worked with us on the Andrea Lemon Circus Project.

The last one is in the Western Visitors Centre at the Shrine of Remembrance. Threads of Connection looks at the orginality and creativity behind the many embroidered textiles created both on the homefront and on the frontline from World War I to today.

Enjoy!

Did You Know?

Claude the Crow, Performing Arts Collection, the Arts Centre. Gift of Richard Bence, 1997

Did you know that before his work was exhibited by the NGV or by Charles Saatchi in the 'Sensation' show, Ron Mueck was the voice of Shirl's Neighbourhood's Claude the Crow?

Mueck not only provided Claude's voice (and personality) but modelled all the puppets including Greenfinger the Garden Gnome whose face is based on producer Richard Bence who visited the Research Service this week. Greenfinger's voice was provided by Julian's step-father Christie Cooney who was also a member of the folk band, The Cobbers. Talk about seven degrees of separation!

Caz

Licence 2 Test Drive

Last year I spoke to some of you about an interesting article I read on maNexus called 'Back at Reality Ranch: Social Media Pioneers and Defenders of the Fort'. It discusses the gap between the Government's position that all government departments should be embracing social media as part of their normal work practices versus many museum workers (especially curators - his words not mine!!!) reluctance to get on board.

As an example of an organisation that is getting on board he cited the State Library of Queensland who have encouraged their staff to complete a program they have set up known as 'Licence 2 Test Drive'. Basically this is a six step self-guided online course that takes you through lessons and activities on blogging, RSS feeds, wikis, photo sharing, social networking and tagging. The course is set up to be completed in 1 hour per fortnight over 12 weeks.

I have had a little explore and think that it is a really great way to get quite a lot of knowledge under your belt very quickly. Obviously we would have to customise the rules a bit for ourselves. For example, in the first lesson you have to create your own blog on the Web but there are simple steps you can take to make it private. We would also not be saving things to the Licence 2 Test Drive site but rather monitoring things ourselves.

Even if you just take the time to watch the videos and click through all the links I guarantee you will learn the answers to many of those questions you have been too afraid to ask! There have been discussions about putting this activity on our Performance Plans when we re-assess them in the coming months so you will also be getting brownie points there too!

In the meantime, have a peek and start the New Year by exploring some unknown territory.

Caz

Nings and things!

Do you know about nings? They seem to be breeding at a great rate. Basically they are social networking sites for people interested in specific topics. You can just read things if you like or you can sign up and join in by asking for information/ideas or commenting on other people's projects. It's just a big love-in really.

I found this post about museums and education on Museum Australia's new ning, maNexus. You might also like to check out the Museum 3.0 Ning (although content seems to overlap substantially) and the CAN outreach blog which has some very interesting content.

Happy ninging

Caz

Who Shot Rock 'n' Roll Pt 2

You may remember I recently sent through a post about Brooklyn Museum's new photographic exhibition, 'Who Shot Rock 'n' Roll'. This is a follow up post showing how they cleverly intergrated new media into their public programs. Although the exhibition is about rock 'n' roll, the focus of the show is photography so they sent out a call for people to come along and take their own rock shots at a live gig set up by the Museum. Punters were then encouraged to upload their images to the Museum's Flickr stream and legendary rock photographer Bob Gruen viewed the work and commented on his favourites both on Flickr and on the Museum's blog.

This sort of program may well be quite manageable for us as it had a very definate start and end date lasting just four weeks. The set up was not that different from our AC/DC Back in Black Friday gig. Next time we could advertise the 'call to arms' on the flyer, we already have a Flickr account (although we haven't actually started using it) and we know lots of great photographers who might have been interested in being involved. Maybe we could try something for 'Women in Rock' - what do you think?

Caz

How objects tell stories

Juggling balls used in "Tex" Glanville's rope spinning and variety act during his career c.1928-1965. Performing Arts Collection

The other day I mentioned in a meeting about the vibe we've been getting from the Dept. of Education about not wanting anymore 'boring Phar Lap-type' collection images. Similarly when Trish attended an all-day FUSE session with teachers they seemed to be more drawn to photographs and documentary images such as posters and lyrics. They too seemed to be a bit non-plussed by images of things like a Melba costume and the Camelot horse.

All this has led me to thinking about the special nature of what we do in interpreting history using objects. If you think about it traditional teaching methods are very much based on the written word. While teachers may also be able to 'read' other media such as photographs, paintings and moving image it is quite another step to being able to 'read' objects without lots of written context.

In my web travels I have come across a couple of sites that acknowledge this boundary and make an attempt to step through the process of using objects to tell history. The best one I have found is the Smithsonian's Object of History: Behind the Scenes with the Curators of the National Museum of American History. The site is aimed squarely at an educational audience and allows students to learn about using objects for history by encouraging them to follow the path of one object. Once you have chosen your object you have access to a contextual video, primary resources and curator interviews about that object. You also have access to web links for further information and get the chance to make your own virtual exhibit.

I think we sometimes forget that not everyone 'gets' what we do. Maybe somewhere down the track we could do our own web project addressing this issue or maybe we should keep it at the back of our minds when developing the 'Treasures' shows? I'd love to know what you all think about this so don't be shy about using the comments box at the bottom of this post!

More soon

Caz

Remember me?

Poster advertising rock band "Chain"at Berties nightclub, Melbourne, 1970s, Performing Arts Collection

Sorry about the lack of posts over recent weeks. Julian and I have been very busy trawling though the Collection to try and find the right material for our Australian Music, Circus and Creative Process packages. It has been a steep learning curve for both of us. I have had to look at the Collection from a very different perspective thinking about connections to curriculum and about how to make historical material engaging in a new medium.

We have started on the Australian music interactive timeline and have been looking at including some of the posters from Bertie's and Sebastian's. Coincidently, I received this blogpost from the Brooklyn Museum featuring some groovy psychadelic posters from their collection.

More soon

Caz