A Tale of Two Collections

Following on from my last post I thought it would be interesting to share my observations on object collection from two national institutions that I have had the opportunity of working with as an artist in residence. Although these two institutions have collected the same type of objects - botanical collections - their reasons for doing so are completely different and in this post I attempt to explain why this is so.

In 2004 I was an ANAT Synapse artist in residence at the Australian National Botanic Gardens, working closely with Dr Christine Cargill, Curator of the Cryptogam Herbarium. Christine's area of expertise lies within the group of plants known as bryophytes - mosses, liverworts and hornworts. My residency there culminated in an exhibition, 'artandthebryophyte', which looked at the history of botanical collection, from Aristotle right through to Cargill (!), and the ways in which these collections have been portrayed. The photo of the installation below shows the 'Cargill' part of botanical collecting showing enlarged images of SEMs of spores of four species of the hornwort, Phaeoceros.

'artandthebryophyte' exhibition, ANBG 2005-6

During this residency I had unlimited access to the Herbarium collection, and I was fascinated with the very old books containing specimens of preserved plants, known as exsiccate.

A few of the old exsiccate in the Cryptogam Herbarium, ANBG
Photo: J Ryder (ANBG Cryptogam Collection)

Exsiccate consisted of either whole, or parts of, real plant specimens that were dried and mounted onto a sheet, or placed into paper packets, and then mounted into a bound book.

A page within one of the exsiccate showing individual packets
containing dried specimens
Photo: J Ryder (ANBG Cryptogam Collection)

Inside one of the specimen packets..this is a Bryam (moss)
and you can see that the plant has been collected when the
moss has sporophytes, the long stem-like structures which
produce the spores for reproduction.
Photo: J Ryder (ANBG Cryptogam Collection)

These exsiccate were often compiled and exchanged between herbaria around the world so that botanists had access to, and could learn from, plants endemic to other countries. They were also sold to other collectors or gentry who compiled private herbaria and cabinets of curiosity to reflect their social standing and knowledge of the world. The plants that were collected were fully identified, including name of the collector, name of the plant, the location of collection etc.

This is the title page of one of the exsiccate held at the ANBG.
This collection is of Swedish Mosses from 1838.
Photo: J Ryder (ANBG Cryptogam Collection)

This paper was folded inside the above exsiccate and was intended to be the
cover for the collection.  You can see that there is the back page, spine and
front page for the collection.
Photo: J Ryder (ANBG Cryptogam Collection)

Exsiccate were not only important resources for botanists and taxonomists, but also were a "critical source of data used by systematic botanists, ecologists, geographers, entomologists, conservation biologists, students and the general public.  DNA preserved in dried specimens is useful in phylogenics. Herbaria are also essential for the study of ex-situ conservation, geographic distributions and the stabilizing of nomenclature (or name resolution) and often act as repositiories of viable seed"

(http://www.hoytarboretum.org/collections-and-conservation/hoyt-arboretum-herbarium/)

Dr Christine  Cargill, Curator of the Cryptogam Herbarium,
ANBG. Today specimens are housed in packets, within boxes,
within even larger boxes to protect them in storage. This is  a
view of the Algae collection at the ANBG.
Photo: J Ryder

Thus, provenance was of extreme importance in the compilation of exsiccate, and interestingly they were also considered true publications, equal to literary publications that we are more familiar with.

Here is an example of an algae collection, Porphyra laciniata, collected in 1889 by
Frank Collins in the USA.  Interestingly there is also another label attached to
the right of this sample in German and another one above it explaining that it is the
wrong label! Provenance is everything in botanical collections and this is included
because it  originally accompanied the sample, even though it is the wrong one.
Photo: J Ryder (ANBG Cryptogam Collection)

Algae are extremely interesting specimens to mount, because they must be floated and 'wet-mounted' to enable them to open up to show their form.  If the specimens were dried first, then adhered onto paper, you would not see the diaphanous and convoluted structures you see under the water. Algae have the marvellous property of containing natural mucillage, or adhesive, so that no commercial adhesive is needed to mount them to the paper. This property has been well-exploited in cullinary and textiles for hundreds of years - think 'agar-agar' as a setting agent and sodium alginate (Manutex) used as a carrier for dyes in the textile printing industry.

This Ulva sp., collected in 1929 by Mary Fuller  has been
wet-mounted but has also used mounting tape to ensure
complete adhesion to the paper.
Photo: J Ryder (ANBG Cryptogam Collection)

However, sometimes other methods are also used when mounting algal specimens to ensure they are completely protected. Below is an image of  an Ulva sp. collected from the Cocos & Keeling Islands. The algae have been adhered to the paper by wet-mounting with muslin to keep the specimens in place.  Unfortunately, the muslin was not removed in the critical stage between drying completely and being damp and now it is impossible to remove the muslin for closer identification of the plants without breaking the fragile, dried specimens.

Ulva sp. from the Cocos& Keeling Islands.
ANBG Herbarium, Photo: J. Ryder

In contrast, as my last post described, I have been investigating two albums of seaweeds collected in the 19th century by two different collectors - one from Port Arthur in Tasmania, and the other from the Port Phillip Bay in Victoria.  Although these are both albums of dried botanical specimens, they both differ greatly from scientific exsiccate.

Front page of the Port Phillip Seaweed Collection.
NMA. Photo : George Serras

The first album, known as the Port Phillip Seaweed Collection, has many pages of dried algal specimens collected mostly from St Kilda and Queens Cliff (now Queenscliff) between the years of 1859 -1882. There are also  a few specimens collected in previous years from Ireland and from the Cape of Good Hope. The album itself is anonymous, so we have no idea of its provenance - who collected it, whether they were male or female, or why. It is likely that this book was purchased as a blank album to fill with a seaweed collection, as the front page is printed with a poem that reads:

"Call Us not Weeds - we are Flowers of the Sea

For Lovely, and bright, and gay tinted are we;

And quite independent of culture or showers -

Then call us not Weeds, we are Ocean's Gay Flowers"

 There have been other seaweed albums from around the world that also have this inscription in them. Many of the specimens are annotated with the place of collection and the year and/or month of collection. A proportion of the specimens are also named botanically, however whether these classifications are correct or not is still to be investigated. As you can see, mounting tape (white) but also sticky tape (yellowed and brittle) have been used to adhere the separate specimens to the exsiccate page. This clue seems to point to the fact that the specimens were made and kept, perhaps for some time, before collaging into the exsiccate.

Page of seaweed specimens, Port Phillip Seaweed Collection.
NMA. Photo : George Serras

 There are also several pages of cryptogams (plants which reproduce by spores, not seeds) towards the back of the album - ferns, mosses and lichens - which have also been classified. Was the collector knowledgeable on the taxonomy of cryptogams, or was he/she looking through botanical references produced overseas in order to name them? These are questions only a trained botanist may offer insight into.

Page of bryophyte specimens, Port Phillip Seaweed Collection.
NMA. Photo : George Serras

If this was the case many of the species may not be correct, and this is something I could further investigate with the help of Dr Cargill at the ANBG.  Another interesting observation is that the specimens are not collated in chronological order, so during my time here at the NMA I have systematically gone through the hi-res digital images of the album to collate this information to build up a picture of the geographical movements of the collector and the patterns of collection.Perhaps the owner of this album only collected specimens during seaside holidays, as sometimes there are almost decades between collections.

It is very clear to see the difference between this collection and that of the ANBG Herbarium exsiccate with relation to placement and mounting of specimens, and annotation of provenance. This album has been compiled with several different species all on one page, and often not from the same year or place.

Front cover of the Port Arthur Seaweed Collection.
NMA. Photo : George Serras

The second seaweed album, known as the Port Arthur Seaweed Collection, is equally fascinating because of it's lack of provenance, and the different mode of collection and collation.  This album is much smaller than the Port Phillip album, but has at least one point of reference to its collector and the date it was collected.  The front cover has a label affixed stating " Seaweeds and Mosses collected at Port Arthur, Van Dieman's Land 1836". The inside cover has a signature "C. Frere". The specimens themselves are arranged neatly and artistically, again with many per page, but in this album there is no attempt at specimen identification on either the seaweeds or the two pages of mosses. You can see that the algae have been wet-mounted from the reverse of the page where it has buckled with the damp from the specimens.

Page of seaweed specimens, Port Arthur Seaweed Collection.
NMA. Photo : George Serras

Like the previous album there are also several pages of  cryptogams that have been collected. The page is labelled "Mosses" but there are a few ferns mounted in there as well.


Page of bryophyte specimens, Port Arthur Seaweed Collection.
NMA. Photo : George Serras

Dr Kirsten Wehner in her article (here) on these two albums had an idea that 'C. Frere' could have been Catherine Arthur, the daughter of George Arthur,  Governor of Tasmania 1823-1836. Catherine later married Sir Henry Bartle Frere while they were both living in India, so this last week I have been tracking down examples of her handwriting and signatures so the team at PATE can compare them.
This would be a wonderful link, if the evidence supports it, because then the album would have a whole layer of history to add to it, linking it to other events both in Australia and overseas.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the two national institutions I have been artist-in-residence with - the ANBG and the NMA - have collected similar types of objects from similar periods of time.  However, that is where the similarities end.  As a scientific institution, the ANBG herbaria (there is one for the Cryptogams and another for vascular plants) need to have as much information about where the specimen was collected as possible, otherwise they are useless as a point of reference. Herbaria have sets of type specimens - i.e. those which define and act as name-bearers for a species. New specimens can be compared against the type specimen and results published in scientifically reviewed papers. There are about ten categories of type specimens but two examples are holotypes (a single specimen designated as a type of the species by the original author at the time the species name and description was published); and isotypes ( a duplicate specimen of the holotype). A scientific herbarium would never collect an object such as the Port Phillip or Port Arthur Seaweed Collections because there is simply not enough relevant data that accompanies them; the specimens are compiled together,  risking physical damage and/or contamination, and they are perhaps not displayed correctly as a tool for future research. However, although these two collections are not suitable for scientific institutions, they are incredibly important objects with regards to a Museum collection. 


The NMA collects objects on several different levels for its collections, the main one being the National Historical Collection, or NHC.  Objects within the NHC comprise a rich and diverse collection of Australian historical material which is held in trust for the nation. These objects contain important stories about our past, present and future as a nation and can vary widely in type and size. For example, the other day out at the Mitchell repository I saw the painted double decker Peace Bus, which was used by the People for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1970's. Measuring 9 metres long, 4.3m high and weighing a massive 10,400 kg this amazing bus was totally decorated with hand-painted flora and fauna of the Pacific. In contrast there are many smaller and more fragile objects, including the two seaweed albums I have been researching.  To date my research of these albums has been online by gaining access to the hi-res photographs that have already been taken of the albums under strict conditions.  Although not as tangible as the real objects themselves, these photographs show details that perhaps you would not see as clearly with the naked eye viewing the actual album.  Because both albums are so fragile, they must be viewed with a conservator or registrar at hand to turn pages and ensure the book has the correct supports to prop it up for viewing .  I have made an application to view these books in a few weeks time so will blog about that soon.

A Tale of Two Cities

National Museum of Australia

For the past three weeks I have been physically located at the National Museum of Australia as part of a research and development grant from the Australia  Council, as mentioned in my previous post. Very broadly, my area of interest is to research the botanical holdings of the NMA with a view to making work that reflects early Australian botanical collections and more specifically the involvement of women as collectors and important contributors to our understanding of Australian botany.

After being trained to use the NMA databases, there are two objects that have initially sparked my interest, that I have started to research further.  These objects are two albums of Seaweed collections made in the 19th century : one from Port Arthur in Tasmania, and the other from the Port Phillip Bay in Victoria. These two albums have been the subject of great interest amongst the People and The Environment (PATE) team, with research initiated by Dr Kirsten Wehner, Head of PATE,  who has written a comprehensive post on the PATE blog here. This article has some lovely images of the Port Phillip album's contents, explains why it was collected for the NMA, and how it is important in the context of social history. Kirsten also goes behind the scenes to show readers how an object is photographed and catalogued for collection. Neither of these albums are on public display - they are quite fragile as you can imagine because they contain real plant specimens, and this could be why there are few left in existence today.

Front page of the Port Phillip Seaweed Album
Photo : George Serras, NMA.

Page of the Port Phillip Seaweed Album
Photo : George Serras, NMA.

The Port Arthur album is completely different from the Port Phillip one, and it is fascinating to see alternative approaches to seaweed collecting.  Although the Port Phillip Album is anonymous with haphazard entries out of chronological order, attempts were made to classify them scientifically and they are mostly identified with a year or place of collection, predominantly from St Kilda and Queens Cliff (now Queenscliff) between the years of 1859 and 1882.


In contrast, the Port Arthur Album has a hand written signature in the front of the book in pencil - "C.Frere", and the cover has a blue printed label attached with the text 'Seaweeds/and Mosses/collected at Port Arthur Van Diemen's Land/1836. However, each of the 25 pages are filled with dozens of different samples, decoratively adhered to the pages.  There are no collection details - no clue whatsoever as to location, date or specimen type.


So far all my research has been electronic - I have been given permission to access the high res digital photographs of each page of the albums, which has been fantastic because it means I can spend time looking at each entry in close detail before I make an appointment with NMA  to view the albums over at the Mitchell repository. The viewing of these two objects will be subject to supervision with a conservator, due to their fragility, so I will probably identify beforehand which page(s) are important for me to to observe first-hand to limit any damage to the albums.


Last week I also re-visited the Cryptogam Herbarium at the ANBG to go through their phycological collection and exsiccate, so my next post will discuss the differences between collecting for a scientific institution and making a hobby collection; how collecting policies differ between a scientific institution and a museum; and how the collection of  similar objects can be approached in entirely different ways.

Vale Robert Foster

The Canberra arts community was shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic death of iconic designer, Robert Foster, yesterday. Rob was a huge figure in the national and international art scene, and many will recognise, and even own, one of the jugs that catapaulted his design business. The picture above was in an issue of Vogue in the early 90's and shows my 'Preserve' fabric bordering a photo of Rob's new jugs at the time. Little did I know that I would be moving to Canberra and having a lot more to do with Robert through ANCA and Craft ACT way back then.

Robert mentored many emerging Canberra artists, and was instrumental in helping launch their careers. He also collaborated with other artists and designers, creating new products into the F!NK range. He will be sorely missed and his passing has left a gaping hole in the heart of the Canberra and Queanbeyan communities. My sincere condolences to his family and friends. Vale Robert.

Winter in Canberra

Since my return from Indonesia last month I was caught up in moving house, unpacking boxes and trying to get my body and mind acclimatised to Winter in Canberra again.....

This morning it SNOWED! and here is a view from the comfort of our new kitchen. It is always so exciting to see visible evidence of how cold it is outside, so I just love the snow....for a while.

I will be blogging regularly for the next couple of months as I have started my new Artist in Residency at the National Museum of Australia (NMA), working with the People and the Environment team (PATE) and doing some research and development for a new body of work inspired by their botanical collection. I was fortunate to receive Australia Council funding to enable me to spend time here accessing their collection and delving into their database of objects for this period of research and development.  I am still in training mode - learning how to use the electronic museum (EMu), Piction, the computers, photocopiers and phone, remembering to swipe my ID pass (and to bring it with me everyday) fight for a carpark, and most importantly, remember what all the acronyms stand for! 

Anway, today was quite special because I met Lyndy, one of the women I met on the Indonesian textile tour, for lunch and showed her around the museum. It was fun reminiscing about our hot and humid holiday  as we sat eating steaming bowls of soup, rugged up with boots, coats and scarves. Lyndy at least was wearing a beautiful ikat scarf from Ende.

As mentioned I will be blogging at the end of each week, but I will just take this opportunity to thank the NMA and the Australia Council for such a fantastic opportunity that will enrich my arts practice no end.

Day 15 - Rinca to Labuan Bajo

Another beautiful sunrise on the way to Rinca island, and all the more poignant because this is our last day on the Ombak Putih. Rinca is one of the four islands that are home to the prehistoric Komodo Dragons, and it lies within the Komodo National Park.

We were guided by Kamli who comes from Rinca. Although the guides live on site when they are working Kamli said that sometimes it takes him 6 hours to get to his village when he is going home because of the danger involved. Not only are there Komodo dragons, there are snakes, wild deer and buffalo to contend with. He sometimes has to run up a tree to sit out the danger. Although, having said that, baby Komodo dragons live in trees for the first couple of years after hatching, and they are not that small.....

Most of my photos were taken on my camera because of the lighting conditions - so the ones taken on my ipad were not so good. This is OK  in terms of lighting, however it is of a 'romantic' nature. I guess we were lucky to see that.....at least they weren't eyeing us off  instead. Although the Komodo look sluggish they can actually run up to 60 km/h and thats a whole lot faster than me! Their bites are toxic and contain Listeria bacteria, so they are really to be avoided. They immobilise their prey and then tear off chunks and swallow whole, no chewing. Their jaws can dislocate to enable them to swallow whole animals. The park is littered with skulls of buffalo and other victims.

The terrain of Rinca was quite different to other islands we have been on and I was quite nervous walking along, making sure I kept up with the group.  Even so, I walked loudly and carried a big stick....

After our visit to ghe Komodo, we continued sailing towards Labuan Bajo to catch our afternoon flight back to Bali. The crew decided to put up all the sails, which was a spectacular sight.

We then went ashore to a small sandy beach and had our last swim and snorkle. It was perfect....except for those parrot fish who wanted to nip you every so often!

This trip has been an amazing adventure and I have learnt so much about Indonesian textiles from remote islands, their cultures and their dyes. It was truly an honour to be guided through the process by David and Sue, whose knowledge, love and passion for not only the textiles but the people, is immense. They were generous to a fault and it is hard to imagine, in fact impossible to imagine trying to do a similar trip by yourself. Their personal connections with local guides and weavers and dyers on these islands is testament to their committment to help these people continue to produce  and practice their textile art in a sustainable way. The wonderful thing about this trip was also the other passengers, who all came with their knowledge and expertise, and not always in textiles. It made for lively and stimulating conversations over delicious meals and bumpy car rides and our friendships formed bonds that I hope will act as warps and wefts for future interaction.

What a great trip this has been, I am so greatful to Sue and David and all the crew of Seatrek for making it such a memorable and informative one!

Day 14 - Waingapu, East Sumba

This morning we moored at Waingapu and were met again by local guide and textile workshop owner, Freddy. We were driven in several cars to his workshop where they produce beautiful ikat for hinggi and lawu. All the designs and ikat tying are done in-house, as is the morinda dyeing and weaving. The indigo is outsourced to specialised artisans.

This is Freddy and his wife at the entrance to his workshop with Davidin the background.

Freddy explained how designs are laid out, then drawn up using  blue and red pencils. The master ikat artist then starts to tie each section using a long knot and thread for the morinda ties, and a shorter thread for the indigo. It is painstaking and exacting work which can take months to complete a single piece.

Many of the staff have been with Freddy since he started his workshop about 15 years ago, and there is careful attention to detail so that each ikat is as sharp and precise as possible because they use only 6 threads per bundle instead of the usual 12 threads per bundle.

A section of tied ikat before dyeing.

I thought they might need a hand pounding the morinda roots before dyeing.....

Once the first layer of indigo has been dyed, the tied warp is soaked in water to get rid of the ash and then it is soaked in a candlenut mordant for 2 days to ensure the cotton soaks up as much as possible. The warp is then left out to hang for 3 months so that the fatty acids stick to the indigo and mordant the fabric for the morinda dyeing. Freddy's workshop dyes the warp in the morinda twice to ensure full colour penetration.

Once the warp has been fully dyed, the threads are focussed by an expert ikat maker, to ensure they have retained tension to provide the sharpest detail possible. They can then be woven by the two weavers there.

Another detailing on these fabrics is the kabokil. This border is woven once the fabric has been cut from the loom. The excess warp threads are turned to the side and are rewoven as the weft to make a decorative striped border at the top and bottom of the fabric.

We can now start to realise why these textiles take such a long time to produce and how complex the whole process is. It is only once you understand how many skills are involved in making one piece of cloth that you realise why prices deserve to be high for such quality.

Some of the many beautiful cloths for sale in Freddy's gallery.

From Freddy's workshop we took a short stroll to the neighbouring royal village of Prailiu, where many textiles, jewellery and carved goods were offered for sale. It was amusing to see the same people we saw yesterday at another harbour, and they continued to follow our every move at each stop we made, even trying to bargain with us as we pulled anchor and sailed away!

After lunch we went to  a rarely visited village where we were welcomed by ikat clad warriors on horseback. It was pretty wild and raw, and we were warned not get close to the horses as they were not well behaved. The whole village turned out for a welcome ceremony, and it was really quite different from what we had experienced before - the crowd was very vocal and boisterous and I was dreading the final dance where, as usual, we were invited to join in. It was all OK however, no complicated steps and perhaps by then the effects of chewing betel had sunk in.

We were also invited into a house which contained the bodies of two deceased family members - one was recent, and the other had been there for 15 years, just in the family living room. Because it was so dark I had to use my camera so will pist photos of this at a later date.

On our way back to the ship we stopped by a cathedral to see the statue of Christ dressed in Sumbanese ikat.

In the afternoon we set sail for the island of Rinca and in the evening it was a final night party with everyone dressing in the textiles they had bought along the way. Most of these textiles were woven to be worn, not as heirlooms, so it was not disrespectful for us to use them, in fact it was a celebration of the skills and talents of all the weavers and dyers we had seen over the past 13 days.

We all enjoyed drinks on the upper deck before gowing downstairs for a wonderful meal followed by traditional music from the crew. Still.......I was in bed by 9pm, getting some sleep before our last day on the boat and thinking about the Komodo Dragons to come....

Day 13 - Sumba

I woke up a bit later this morning and the sky was quite overcast, not much of a sunrise, but in retrospect this looks pretty spectacular. We were also joined by a pod of dolphins, lumba-lumba, to the side of the boat as we sailed towards the east coast of Sumba. We landed on the beach at Mololo and were driven by our local guide, Freddy, to the royal hamlet of Pau, where two Princesses live.

Most of the rice fields we saw on our way to Pau are owned by the King and are farmed by Suvanese slaves - yes slavery is still alive and well in Sumba and these slaves are known as papangan.  The two Princesses, Tamunambu Pakki and Tamunambu Tokung, are known for their very fine  pahikung weaving. This weaving is a supplementary warp technique which uses a white supplementary warp. The pattern defined with liddy sticks on a separate piece so that in effect the design is in front of them, like a cartoon, and the pattern is copied or transferred below.

This piece has been warped up with the top white supplementary threads. You can see the bottom indigo layer below and the pattern with the liddy sticks.

Here is another showing the weaving of the supplementary warp. The technique of ndatta is then employed, and this is the individual colouring of motifs or threads by using a brush, often a toothbrush, once it is woven.

Both Pau and nearby Rende are royal hamlets and these tombs are an integral  and very important part of life. When an aristocrat dies, the body is placed in a foetal position and wrapped in his or her finest cloth. The body is then bound with a lot of other cloths, but these do not have to be important ones. The last cloth however must be another fine cloth. The body is put in a coffin and placed in the family, home for up to several years.....right near the kitchen....! Death is an accepted part of life, and by leaving a substantial amount of time between the death and the internment of the body allows the family plenty of time to raise funds for the funeral - the calculating of how many animals will be slaughtered, raising the funds, inviting relatives, organising accommodation etc. it is as far away from the Western idea of death and burial as chalk and cheese.

Although the sacrifice of slaves when an aristocrat dies is prohibited there are stories about certain 'unfortunate accidents' that happen around these mausoleums involving the papangan that perhaps were helping to raise the large stone lids to inter the body of the deceased......

Overall we saw some gorgeous examples of woven cloths inside the Princesses house but this was done with little light and we were not allowed to take the cloths outside. It was all hush hush business so the people outside could not see what or if any cloths were being sold.

Rende was a similar village, slightly differently set up but with similar tombs and cloths. However, the Princess there wove some very fine baskets and showed us her collection.

Some of the cloths for sale around the village, employing a variety of techniques including ndatta, pahikung, ikat, mud dyeing, beading and indigo.

Two examples of Rohu Banggi, which are about 6-7m long. These were wrapped around the man's body to protect him like armour.

Textile production on Sumba is a cooperative venture - tasks are divided amongst villages for ikat tyeing, indigo dyeing, morinda dyeing and weaving. Most of the yarns we saw were commercially spun, and there were varieties in quality from those using commercial dyes, those using nautral dyes and those using a combination, especially with the ndatta cloths. It was also hard to tell whether the mud cloths were made with natural or synthetic dyes.

After a long hot day of looking at textiles we went ashore at night to have a wonderful beach barbeque that the staff of the Ombak Putih had prepared for us. Out on the dark beach, lit only by tea candles in the sand, we got to see a beautiful display of stars in the night sky with the Ombak Putih lit up and floating in the sea before us. Bliss.