Out of the Box

Last Thursday and Friday were spent at the University of Canberra's Out of the Box symposium which aimed to share strategies for accessing natural history collections.  It was a perfect arena in which to give a lightning talk about my current research on the Charles Morrison seaweed albums, and to introduce to others the way I work with natural history collections and objects.

Part of my presentation

It was a bonus that Dr Christine Cargill, my scientist-collaborator, also gave a talk about the artists-in residence she has hosted at the Cryptogam Herbarium at the ANBG, including myself, so double exposure on my artworks!

Christine Cargill's presentation

There were some very interesting talks from speakers who were involved with different aspects of natural history collections - conservators, researchers, writers, artists, curators, scientists, taxidermists etc - but the symposium itself was engineered so that everyone who attended could participate in discussions and workshops on how to make natural history collections more accessible, both in the physical and virtual sense.

These discussions raised issues about increased non-scientist access and security; the increased value of physical collections in a digital world (and also the importance of an online presence); the role of volunteers; the idea of establishing an Australian Natural History Museum; who the stakeholders of these collections are; and how and who we can lobby effectively for an increased  awareness about the importance of these collections.

There were tours of three CSIRO collections: The  Australian National Insect Collection; the Australian National Wildlife Collection and the Australian National Herbarium.  I chose to go to the Herbarium again as I haven't been for a few years.  The ANWC was fully booked as there were limited places and lots of delegates who worked in the fields of taxidermy and conservation of animals and birds.  ANIC was also a very popular tour but I had been there not too long ago.

Brendan Lepschi, the Curator of the ANH, spent an hour taking us through the various aspects of the collection, which was greatly appreciated by the students and interstate visitors who had never been behind the scenes before.

Brendan Lepschi in the ANH showing how specimens are kept

Herbarium sheets showing how small orchids are mounted

Small plants can also be preserved in jars although they tend to
lose colour

Specimen of Eucalyptus collected by Joseph Banks on
Captain Cook's first Voyage

There were also three practical workshops that you could register for : Conservation of physical specimens with Sheldon Teare (Australian Museum); Digital Sharing with Ely Wallis from Museum Victoria, and Creative Responses to Natural History with Erica Seccombe. I chose to go to the Digital Sharing workshop and it opened my eyes to online resources for collections I didn't know existed. It also gave me a broader understanding to other sites such as the Atlas of Living Australia, Trove as well as providing insight into how I could contribute online as a citizen scientist to several other websites.

As with most conferences, the highlight is always meeting like-minded people, finding common ground and talkking about collaborative projects that could be realised in the future.
A very big thank you to Alison Wain for not only organising the conference but ensuring everything ran smoothly over the two days so that maximum time was spent sharing information and strategies for ensuring natural history collections are seen as vibrant resources of information, not dusty old exhibits locked away in dark cabinets of curiosity.

Creative Canberra Weekend

Despite the warnings that the weekend in Canberra was going to be heavy rain and freezing, my Indigo resist workshop was a wonderful way to spend the days indoors with a lovely group of women eager to extend their knowledge of resist prints and indigo dyeing.  We kept our strength up with delicious lunches and morning and afternoon teas in front of a raging open fire in the kitchen, just the perfect antidote to the crisp temperature outside. We explored many types of printing and monoprinting onto fabrics with two types of resist pastes and I encouraged students to layer their fabrics so that different intensities of indigo could be achieved.

Submerging the resist printed fabric into the indigo vat

Exploring cut stencils and screenprinting rice resist paste.

Creative use of clay resist using the leaves from outside.

Our happy group proudly showing off one of their samples
produced over the weekend.

If YOU would like to explore your latent creativity with textiles, my current list of wokshops is available on my website here

Lights, Camera, ACTION!

The Old Post office building in Picton with Seaweed Album artwork

Just thought I would share some photos with you from IlluminARTe in Picton last Saturday night.  The two buildings I was asked to provide artwork for were the Old Post Office and the Old Bank buildings on the corner of Menangle Street. My inspiration for the Old Post Office was the Charles Morrison Seaweed Album from the NMA that I have been researching. The image above is reconstructed from the intricately tooled leather cover of the seaweed album that I have reconfigured to fit the building.

Animated seaweeds gracefully floating across the facade.

I worked with Jerome Pearce from Just Pixels in Sydney who animated the images on both the buildings.  The Old Bank Building on the opposite corner was inspired by the beautiful lithographs drawn by William Henry Harvey, the noted Irish phycologist,  for his five-volume Phycologia Australica that he wrote after his 18 month visit to Australia, New Zealand and the Friendly Islands in 1854-5.

Underwater discoveries with HW Harvey lithographs

I think Jerome had fun with this one and I thank him for taking some underwater stills off the beach near his house.  This building was a little more difficult to read as the lower portions of the building could not be lit because they were so recessed, so a lot of the imagery towards the bottom got a little lost with people and signage etc getting in the way.  

During the day the other artists and myself manned the pop-up gallery where we showed are our artworks and I thank Susan Conroy and Wollondilly Council for making this all happen.  It was a great night, lots and lots of people and plenty of food and stalls to while away the hours.

IlluminARTe @ Picton

A one-day-and-night event is happening at the tiny town of Picton this coming Saturday, called IlluminARTe. Readers of my blog may recall a post on my images projected onto several of the historic buildings there in 2015. This year I was one of the invited artists to develop work specifically for the old Bank and Post Office Buildings in the main street and my theme this year will be all things seaweed, following on from my NMA residency and recent discoveries.  There will also be a pop-up exhibition (details above) showing two large works on paper of mine.  I will be manning the exhibition from 1-3pm on Saturday, and the other artists will also be minding the exhibition at some point during the festival.  Picturesque Picton has a population of around 4,500, but I have it on good authority that nearly 20,000 people attend the illuminations! Should be a great night out.

Last chance......

Last week was spent helping deliver 'The Nature Collector' school holiday workshops for children at the National Museum of Australia, as reported in an earlier post. Despite thinking I might be out of my depth trying to inspire four-year-olds in the joys of making rocks and seaweed out of tissue paper, it was actually awesome!

Firstly, the children and their adult escorts went to view the two seaweed albums held by the NMA that I have been researching - The Port Phillip album and The Port Arthur Album. Although these were housed in a glass case, everyone really responded to the colours and fragility of the preserved specimens. Then everyone headed back down to the main foyer where the workshops began.

Welcome to the Workshop! - Ally, Sasha and Amanda from NMA

This program was so engaging we had parents and children, grannies and friends all exploring different ways of representing nature - from sitting and drawing, looking at details through a light microscope, developing sun prints (cyanotyping) of nature arrangements, and helping to make a collaborative underwater collage of seaweeds.

 

 

 

Part of the collaborative seaweed collage

In the first week of the holidays I was in Ballarat at a fibre retreat, but also investigating another seaweed album, at the University so my good friend, sculptor Mary Kayser, started off making the seaweed collages with the children.

There were two workshops a day and there were 30 children per workshop (plus adults and littlies).
Each panel of the seaweed collage measured approximately 2 metres x 90 cm and each day we stuck the panel up onto clear glass barriers so the light could filter through.  By the second week we had started attaching the panels to the other side of the glass, so it became much more layered and complex.

 

 

 

 

Part of the final collage - thanks to everyone who contributed!

 

 

It was an exhausting week, but I was surprised at how quickly the time went during the workshops - we just became absorbed in the task, and I hope I have inspired some up and coming marine biologists, phycologists, scientists or artists through my own artworks on display and also the workshop.

MOST IMPORTANTLY......The seaweed albums are only up for 2 more days at the NMA, so its your last chance of seeing them before they are housed safely back in their archival boxes. Who knows when they will be on view to the public again?

Flowers of the Sea

Bridie Smith's article in yesterday's papers.

Yesterday was very exciting for me, because I could finally "come clean" about what I had been  doing during the final months of my arts residency at the National Museum of Australia, supported by the Australia Council. Those of you who have been following my residency and blog may have wondered why suddenly all went quiet....!

The above article, written by Fairfax journalist Bridie Smith, featured in The Age, The Canberra Times and the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, reveals that I had found the identity of the collector of the anonymous "Port Phillip Album" of 19th century pressed seaweeds, collected predominantly in the Port Phillip Bay area of Melbourne between 1859 and 1882. The full article can be read here http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/flowers-of-the-sea-20170327-gv7wum.html.

Not only did I discover that the album was made by an elusive and little known collector, Charles Morrison, but that there were also 6-10 other albums by him in other institutional collections throughout NSW and Victoria. This was a great coup not only for the NMA, who now have provenance for their album, but also for me as an artist in residence working within a museum, and researching historical collections, which is where I realise my passion lies. Although that is quite obvious to many who follow my work and exhibitions that usually inspired by  botanical collectors, scientists and objects with social and cultural history. I feel it is also a great validation for all of us who work as artists in residence within scientific or cultural institutions - many people still do not understand what real benefits an artist can bring to the institution, scientist or researcher, and we are often seen as merely capable of delivering decorative outcomes that do not impact upon the serious work done by the institution. 

I am now in the process of writing an academic paper for publication and inspired to keep researching these and other collections from the 19th century, so stay tuned! 

The Nature Collector

As many of my readers will know, last year I spent 6 months at the National Museum of Australia as an artist in residence with the PATE department, which was documented here and in earlier blog posts.

Two of the objects I was fascinated with were seaweed albums from the 19th Century, one from Port Arthur in Tasmania, and the other from Port Philip in Victoria. There have been some exciting developments with these albums, which will be announced this weekend in The Age and possibly The Canberra Times.

Alone with the Port Phillip Seaweed Album!

Being photographed at the NMA Repository by Alex for
the upcoming Bridie Smith article for The Age 

However, as a direct result of my residency and research the albums themselves will be on display for the very first time from 8th April until 22nd April at the NMA.  This will co-incide with the school holiday workshops  called The Nature Collector that start next week.

Amanda and Kate from Education admiring my pressed seaweeds

The Education team at the NMA have been working hard to
collect natural materials in preparation for the workshops

In front is a cabinet filled with my pressed seaweeds and in the
background are the notebooks, papers, cyanotyping materials
that have been prepared by the Team for each workshop. Awesome!

Unfortunately I will be interstate for the first week, but my good friend, Canberra sculptor and artist Mary Kayser, will be inspiring children to create an enormous collaborative seaweed collage at the Museum.  I will be back for the second week to finish off the program. Children will also get to start a nature Journal that they can take home with them, and create some cyanotyping with natural materials. More information and bookings can be found here.