Inside the Collection

Collection stories

A young woman wearing a kilt is looking at the photographer and stands next to a steam wagon. The steam wagon, which is surrounded by clouds of steam, is standing on a concrete pavement outside a workshop. A steam wagon is a self-propelled steam-powered truck with a timber tip tray. The side of the steam wagon has the wording 'Municipality of Rockdale' for whom the wagon was built and the front has the manufacturer's name, 'Aveling & Porter'. A man with a long beard is standing on the other side of the wagon looking at the wagon's steam engine.

Career of a Powerhouse Museum Curator

January 13, 2021

Margaret Simpson
How do you condense a lifetime's dream job as a curator at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum into around 1,000 words? Well, my career at the Museum began on 1 February 1983 as a Research Assistant with the Department of Transport and Engineering when the Powerhouse was still a construction site.
Exhibition view showing the Soviet era Cosmos‑782 Bion satellite in the foreground with selection of models from casts of horse jaws made, in the background is a detail of the Porkhani video by Javad Azimi and Hamid Hosseini. The walls in the space are painted a fluoro, hi-vis yellow and have led strip lighting.

Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian: I Prefer Talking to Doctors About Something Else

April 9, 2020

Katie Dyer
Dubai-based artists Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian work collectively to create expansive installations composed of artworks and artefacts. Taking the form of visual poetry by incorporating and disorganising objects from the Powerhouse Museum collection, this project, includes artefacts such as Skylab space debris, a donkey’s hoof, anatomical models, ceramics, and textiles.
A large, square, hand embroidered quilt on a cream background. The outside edge has been bound with red stitching in a zig-zag pattern. The dominant central motif is a black elephant embroidered with trappings and flowers, surrounded by four padma (lotus), amidst a profusion of gaily coloured plants, birds and symbols of everyday life. The central panel is surrounded by dark red herringbone stitching. The outer border consists of red and pink flowers and green leaves which are varying interpretations of the lotus flower, being different on each of the four sides. On each of the long sides the lotus are interspersed with a sweeping 's' line. Inside that border again, on a pale blue background, there is a row of yellow boteh (in Bangladesh, kalka) motifs.

Stories on cloth: Surayia Rahman’s kantha embroidery

September 11, 2019

Vanessa Thorne
How many hands does it take to create a kantha tapestry like this? In this instance, it was the work of eight women embroidering every day for one year. Threading not only a story of traditional motifs, but also the international recognition of an ancient craft and women’s socio-economic emancipation in Bangladesh and West Bengal.
A museum display of an open steam engine made up of a large fly wheel attached by gears to a piston and steam cylinder.

James Watt’s Bicentenary: the man and his machines

August 21, 2019

Sarah Reeves
25 August marks the 200th anniversary of the death of inventor James Watt. To mark the occasion, we have invited a guest post by Debbie Rudder, an expert on Watt, to explore his life and scientific contributions.

Architectural models from the collection

August 14, 2019

Keinton Butler
The Powerhouse Museum collection contains material relating to architecture and the built environment, of local, national and international significance. The collection includes scale models, design archives, plans, drawings, photography and interior fittings, with projects ranging from iconic buildings by award winning, internationally recognised Australian architects Glenn Murcutt, Harry Seidler and John Andrews, to social housing and civic projects of public interest. Architectural models form an important part of the architecture and built environment collection, and the Museum has many fine examples of conceptual, working, and large-scale presentation models that illustrate this craft.
Coloured map drawn from above showing wharves and buildings.

Pyrmont and Ultimo: an industrial past

June 25, 2019

Anni Turnbull
Like many suburbs of Sydney, Pyrmont and Ultimo have undergone significant changes during the last two hundred years. It’s hard to imagine the current peninsula filled with the sounds of quarrying, smoke from iron works and power stations and sweet smells from Colonial Sugar Refinery (CSR).
A pair of coloured glass forms standing upright against a black background. The form on the left is slightly larger and is decorated with vertical bands of in green, blue and yellow. The smaller piece ion the right shows bands in dusty pink, grey and green hues.

The Barry Willoughby Bequest: two new acquisitions

June 12, 2019

Eva Czernis-Ryl
Last year, we introduced to our readers the first glass and ceramic objects acquired for the MAAS collection with funds from the remarkably generous Barry Willoughby Bequest. We are delighted to share the news about two more recent acquisitions enabled by Willoughby’s passion for Australian studio glass and ceramics as expressed in his will.
Phonograph with wooden display box, which has an internal metal horn and fixed playing mechanism on the centre top. The wooden display box has a hinged lid which can be propped open.

Jukebox Jewkbox! A Century on Shellac and Vinyl: a crossover of collections (Part 1 of 2)

May 21, 2019

Damian McDonald
I recently had the privilege of seeing the exhibition Jukebox Jewkbox! A Century on Shellac and Vinyl at the Sydney Jewish Museum in Darlinghurst. The exhibition explores the phenomenon of mass-produced music, performance and comedy on the mediums of shellac and vinyl, and the enormous part Jewish people have played, and continue to play in the industry.
Photograph of a man standing holding a large poster. The poster depicts the portiat of a man wearing a red turban with a moustache and the word aussie appears in large text across the bottom

Peter Drew: artist and activist

May 9, 2019

Anni Turnbull
"Public space is a great equaliser, and an ancient forum." The placing of posters in public spaces is artist Peter Drew’s way of drawing attention to Australia’s immigration issues and a direct response to the Australian government’s ‘Stop the Boats’ campaign.
Realistic model of a cow, complete with horns and hair coat.

MAAS Partnership with Red Room Poetry

April 18, 2019

Karolina Novak
Poetry Object 2019 RED ROOM POETRY Object is Australia’s largest free poetry writing competition for schools. The competition invites us to think about how the objects in our lives can hold special personal meanings, and to explore capturing these stories in our own words by writing a poem about a chosen talismanic object.