Inside the Collection

Collection items stored in compactus

Turning on the Canon Canola 1614P

November 7, 2011

Campbell Bickerstaff
A couple of weeks ago the Museum received a request from Peter Miller for access to a collection object.  Now this type of access is not always granted as it is resource intensive - an object needs to be moved to a suitable location for viewing and a curator or conservator may need to be on hand to move the object - remember this material is kept by the Museum for the people of NSW in perpetuity and so we want it to last.
Aircraft model of Bristol Box kite flow

The Parramatta flying dentist: a model story

November 4, 2011

Anni Turnbull
Today celebrates 100 years since an adventurist dentist and self taught aviator landed in Parramatta Park in a Bristol Boxkite. The aviator William Ewart “Billy” Hart, made one of the earliest and longest flights in New South Wales, when he flew from Penrith and landed in Parramatta Park.
16586 Plaster replica of ivory pyx, Life of Achilles, plaster, original Classical 3rd or 4th C CE, replica made c. 1800

What on Earth is a Fictile Ivory?

October 28, 2011

Erika Taylor
This post is by Elinor Langtry, a University of Sydney museum studies intern. Pyx Box with scenes from the life of Achilles used to contain incense, bread for the Eucharist, or holy relics, 200 to 400 AD.
Open sewing box made of wicker with soft lining filled with a collection of sewing materials

Inspiration #1: craft sewing box

October 27, 2011

Nicole Balmer
Museum collections are inspiring. They spark the desire to create. Sometimes inspiration ignites your imagination and sends it soaring off out into the stratosphere and back. Sometimes inspiration is the slow quiet kind which subtly seeps into daily life.
Mirath in Mind logo designed by M K Graphics

Mirath in Mind- Celebrating the legacies of Fairuz

October 18, 2011

Melanie Pitkin
Community outreach and engagement is a core responsibility of any museum. This is what helps us to bridge social and cultural divides, develop greater tolerance and understanding, facilitate new connections and relationships with one another and expand our way of seeing.
Portrait of MAAS conservator, Suzanne Chee

Meet the conservator- Suzanne Chee

October 12, 2011

Melanie Pitkin
Name: Suzanne Chee How long have you been at the Museum for? I just had to do some mental arithmetic! I have been working at the Powerhouse Museum for 26 years! What is your role at the Museum?
Penicillin mould from Florey's lab. Collection: Powerhouse Museum

Ada Lovelace day: our tribute to Ethel Florey

October 7, 2011

Erika Taylor
Our nomination of scientist for this year’s Ada Lovelace Day is Ethel Florey. You are more likely to have heard of her Nobel Prize winning husband Howard, but Ethel was also part of the team that established the antibiotic qualities of penicillin and worked out how to produce it in medical quantities.
Collection items stored in compactus

Jobs – not the greatest just the latest

October 7, 2011

Campbell Bickerstaff
During an interview yesterday regarding the design legacy of Steve Jobs I was probed to cast back and find something comparable.  I thought about Olivetti and their penchant, early in the 20th century, for graduates of the Bauhaus who they put to work on shaping their image, corporate and product, with new dynamic graphics and plasticity to product design.  This emphasis and understanding and appreciation from the corporate head down of design were later emulated by Braun and Sony (among others) with even more crafted identities.
Professor Ben Gascoigne polarimeter built at Mt Stromlo in 1963

Brian Schmidt wins the Nobel Prize

October 6, 2011

Debbie Rudder
It’s an exciting time for astronomy in Australia, with the recent announcement that Professor Brian Schmidt is to receive the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics and the strong possibility that the nation could be selected next year as the site for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).
Photograph of Steve jobs co-founder of Apple

Steve Jobs 1955-2011

October 6, 2011

Erika Taylor
The Museum is saddened to hear the news of Steve Jobs passing. He will forever be immortalized in the Museum with the acquisition of an Apple I computer we acquired last year. The Apple I was designed, manufactured and sold by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the mid 1970s and launched the Apple Computer Company.
Black lace Bessie Rouses black bodice

The many uses of a black dress: Stories from the Australian Dress Register

October 5, 2011

Anni Turnbull
Black clothing has become a ubiquitous choice for the twentieth century adult. Yet in the nineteenth century black clothing had specific associations and uses. The black garments on the Australian Dress Register show both the versatility of black and how its use in fashion gradually changed during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.