UNLOCKED SUMMER 2021, NO 32 ISSN 2203-4684 Sydney Living Museums The Mint, 10 Macquarie Street Sydney NSW 2000 T 02 8239 2288 Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm info@slm.com.au slm.com.au Acknowledgment of Country Our museums and places are on Aboriginal land. We acknowledge the First Nations peoples, the traditional custodians, and we pay respect to the Elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We understand and appreciate that Aboriginal peoples have deep and continuing cultural attachment to Country and are the rightful interpreters of their history and heritage. In this spirit, Sydney Living Museums values the diversity of Aboriginal connections to the places and landscapes we care for and is informed by the Aboriginal cultural heritage and identity that underpin SLM’s museums and places. We acknowledge the continuing impact these sites have on Aboriginal Country. This recognition guides the ways in which we create contemporary conversations and experiences at each of our sites. Unlocked is the quarterly magazine of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW, incorporating Sydney Living Museums, which cares for significant historic places, buildings, landscapes and collections in NSW. The Historic Houses Trust of NSW is a statutory authority of, and principally funded by, the NSW Government. All information is correct at time of printing. Feedback and comments can be sent to info@slm.com.au © 2021 Sydney Living Museums Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Contents 3 From the Executive Director 4 In brief 6 Iridescent by Gerwyn Davies 12 The menagerie comes to the museum 14 How to move a zoo 20 ‘Here’s luck to the aniseed!’ 24 Goodbye, Scotland 28 ‘An honest, faithful, affectionate Servant’ 32 Staff profile 34 Truth telling and deep listening 36 Philanthropy 38 Your key to what’s on Cover image Elizabeth Bay House III, Gerwyn Davies, 2021. Courtesy and © Gerwyn DaviesFrom the Executive Director Adam Lindsay The cover of this edition of Unlocked is adorned with something very special: an exclusive image for our members that was captured during the development of Iridescent by Gerwyn Davies. The process of selecting images for the exhibition was tough, owing to the range and quality of the photographs Gerwyn produced. Consequently, this shot – taken at Elizabeth Bay House – wasn’t selected for display, but we loved it and wanted to share it with you. Iridescent and How to Move a Zoo launch our 2022 theme, ‘Life reimagined’. This theme is the source of inspiration that has guided the development of the content and stories about history that we’ll bring to life this year, to surprise, delight and intrigue our audiences. Iridescent sees artist and costume maker Gerwyn Davies interpret each of our museums and the storage centre for the State Archives Collection. In doing so, each is transformed through the deconstruction and creative reassembly of characters, histories, textiles and records. The photographs are mesmerising. The backgrounds are so familiar, but in conversation with the marvellous materiality of the fanciful figures that appear in them, the places are truly reborn. How to Move a Zoo takes us on a journey that may, at first, seem chimerical. Further exploration reveals it is a reimagining of a fantastic, true-life Sydney story when, in 1916, animals were escorted through the city to make their way to the new and state-of-the-art Taronga Zoological Park. The production supporting the retelling of this event is immersive, and the subject itself is as logistically fascinating as it is universally appealing. These two exhibitions are wildly different in almost every way, yet they both demonstrate our accessible, captivating and engaging approach to history. Furthermore, they show the fertile ground that is ‘Life reimagined’. We look forward to welcoming you to these and the many other programs and events we’ll be holding over summer. I hope they also whet your appetite and stoke your curiosity about what else we have planned for 2022 – it’s going to be a wonderful year! Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and may you and your loved ones enjoy a festive season with much luck, hope and happiness. From the Executive Director Adam Lindsay. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums Adam Lindsay. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums 3FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORMain image and inset After Dark at the Hyde Park Barracks; Marcus Whale performing in the forecourt of the Barracks in March. Photos © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums VISIT After Dark at the Hyde Park Barracks Thursday 24 February, 5pm–9pm slm.is/barracksafterdark After Dark returns After Dark at the Hyde Park Barracks is back for 2022! This regular late-night event transforms the UNESCO World Heritage-listed site with live music, ideas, installations and discussions, with a focus on interpreting the historic site in a contemporary way. Previous After Dark events have explored wide-ranging themes through art, poetry and music, as well as guided meditations in the hammock room and an opportunity for ticketholders to join in a choir performance. The first event for 2022, to be held on 24 February, will celebrate the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras with a queer-friendly program that reflects and champions our diverse community. Intimate panel discussions and activations of the site invite visitors to see and experience the Barracks through a different lens. Independent broadcaster FBi Radio will be on board to curate musical performances by some of Sydney’s most exciting artists. Delicious pop-up food and drink options will also be available throughout the evening. Members enjoy a 20% discount on tickets.Discover rare trade catalogues online A recent gift from architectural historian and author Robert Irving OAM to the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection includes trade catalogues dating from the late 19th century. Each of these catalogues is special – some are the only known surviving copy, while others have a unique Australian provenance. These rare catalogues join other material being digitised to add to our growing online library, used by researchers and others in Australia and around the world. Robert has had a close association with the library through his research and previous donations, and his gift reflects his lifelong interest and career in Australian architectural history. The gift includes the earliest known catalogue (1889) connected with the Wunderlich firm in Sydney, best known for its pressed-metal ceilings and architectural ornament. There’s also a unique copy of a parquet flooring catalogue produced by the Anglo Swiss Parquet Flooring Company in Melbourne (c1889), and a beautifully coloured English catalogue of bathroom and plumbing appliances produced by Shanks & Co (1893). Look out for an article about our significant digitisation project in the autumn 2022 issue of Unlocked. From top Ventilator designs from Illustrated catalogue of embossed ornaments in zinc, copper & lead for art and architecture manufactured by E Wunderlich, Sydney and Berlin, 1889; Illustrations from trade catalogue of parquet flooring designs, Anglo Swiss Parquet Flooring Company, Melbourne, c1889. Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Sydney Living Museums. Gift of Robert Irving OAM ; Image courtesy Southern Wild Co VIEW Browse the library’s trade catalogues: archive.org/details/slmtradecatalogues ’Tis the season Seeking gift inspiration? Discover an exciting collection of gifts, including a delightful range of homegrown candles, in SLM stores this Christmas. Created in the small historic town of Rockley in central NSW, Southern Wild Co takes its inspiration from the landscape to craft its collection of seven uniquely Australian candles, available in two sizes (from $29.95). The popular Magic Pudding candle is perfect for Christmas, as described by the creatives at Southern Wild Co: ‘Think rude puddings and childhood memories wrapped in warm aromas of sandalwood and vanilla’. To celebrate the season, we’re offering Unlocked readers 20% off the entire Southern Wild Co collection with the purchase of two or more items from the range. Simply use the code SWC20 at checkout in our online store, or shop in person at the Hyde Park Barracks shop or the new Bullion Store at The Mint. You can also take advantage of Click and Collect for online orders and collect from the Bullion Store. Offer ends 31 January 2022. Shipping is additional. No further discounts apply. SHOP ONLINE Visit slm.is/shop 5IN BRIEFFabricating heroes: Iridescent by Gerwyn Davies Interview by Mel Flyte, Assistant Curator Elizabeth Bay House, Gerwyn Davies, 2021. Sydney Living Museums. © Gerwyn Davies Gerwyn Davies. Courtesy and © Gerwyn Davies Sydney Living Museums has commissioned photographic artist and costume maker Gerwyn Davies to launch our 2022 creative theme, ‘Life reimagined’, with Iridescent, an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney. In this exhibition, Gerwyn Davies’s creations – from oversized queer creatures to fantastically costumed beings – invade SLM’s historic interiors and significant places. Uncanny and incongruous, the works in Iridescent seduce the viewer into looking more deeply at these sites and their associated narratives. We attempt to identify the familiar, yet we’re presented with the alien. This tension forms the crux of Davies’s photographic practice, at once alluring and repelling, inviting and denying. Iridescent draws attention to the multiple subjectivities that exist within museum spaces, and invites audiences to engage with history in a different way – less reverential, more playful, witty and liberating. Q: How did the process of responding to these 12 unique properties differ from your usual practice, and what was your starting point for creating each image? A: Typically, when I’m making an image, I gradually construct a fantasy world inside the photograph, adding and removing details and controlling every single element inside the frame. What starts as an image of a real location gets massaged into something more synthetic or fake. These are spaces that will never be physically encountered – as the viewer isn’t able to see around the corners of the photograph, the fantasy is never exposed for what it is. Iridescent was kind of a reversal of how I normally work. These SLM spaces exist; people are able to visit and experience them. I had to find a way to accentuate and celebrate these spaces while still trying to conjure that sense of fantasy and otherworldliness. It became a very interesting battle to resist my normal tendency to manipulate and manicure the image and make everything varnished, plastic and shiny. The nice thing about this process is that it gave me one less thing to think about – there were a certain set of fixed conditions I had to respond to. If I couldn’t alter these spaces through photo manipulation, I had to think about how I could use lighting to shift the way the spaces normally appear. I started the process by heading out and inspecting all of the sites so I could get an idea of them as a collection before considering them individually. As the sites were the one thing I wasn’t looking to manipulate, I thought about them as stages on which I could construct and perform these spectacles. I read through the established histories of each place, about the people who lived in those spaces and the key events that happened there, while also keeping a keen eye out for their lesser- known histories, inferences or unexpected subplots. For most of the sites there was an actual historical figure I was in conversation with in producing the work, but ultimately the details got lost as I diverted their story in new directions. So the final work at Vaucluse House isn’t about Sarah Wentworth, for instance, but there are elements of her story that I’ve drawn upon as a foundation to help spin off something new. I was captivated by the objects presented throughout the houses – I’ve used these to inform the materials that I chose and the forms of the costumes that I constructed. Each work is also propelled by a sense of the intangible. When you visit these historic sites and museums, you’re kind of looking through ‘… these elaborate queer creatures … dramatically shift the context of the museum sites by transforming them into fantastic habitats of their own.’ SUMMER 20218 Elizabeth Farm, Gerwyn Davies, 2021. Sydney Living Museums. © Gerwyn Davies them rather than at them. You’re trying to imagine the cast of characters who lived in these places, to picture how they lived, so there’s a strange kind of seeing and unseeing. Because I knew that I was going to insert something – a drama, an event, a spectacle – into the space, I was looking through them to imagine what kind of queer creature was going to take over and occupy that space. And that was more informed by the sensation of being in a space, drifting around it and trying to envisage what kind of image would materialise from it. Q: Your practice challenges the traditional understanding of portrait photography as a means of revealing a truth about the sitter, by instead presenting a subject who is ambiguous, who reveals but also conceals themselves. How important is this in your work? A: It’s critical to my work. It’s a constant game that I’m playing with the viewer, a routine between myself and the camera, a disappearing act enabled through the elaborate costuming, as well as through photographic post-production. Traditionally, yes, photography was 9IRIDESCENT BY GERWYN DAVIESNext >