The People & Environment Blog – Page 4 – People's relationships with Australia's natural and built environments

5 June 2015

Utilitarian to spiritual

While it’s usually dangerous to make claims about universality, making them about water is relatively safe. The first way in which water is universal is its utility to human beings. The second is that almost every version of spirituality or religion references water, either by actually using it within its rites or by employing imagery of it. This page explores the

Uncategorised/Water

1 June 2015

‘Southern Cross’ lands in Honolulu: Crossing the Pacific

At 12:17 pm on 1 June 1928, the ‘Southern Cross’ landed safely at Wheelers Field, Honolulu, with her crew – Charles Ulm, Charles Kingsford Smith, Harry Lyon and James Warner. They received a warm welcome and shared a sense of relief in completing only the fifth successful aerial crossing from California to Hawaii. Celebrations were short-lived as they prepared for the next leg of their journey across the Pacific Ocean. Two objects celebrating the flights...

Aviation/Uncategorised

19 May 2015

Post-traumatic stress and the long Shadow of Ebola

After 42 days without a new case of Ebola, Liberia is officially now ‘free’ of the disease, as of 9 May 2015, according to the World Health Organization. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-09/liberia-declared-free-of-ebola-disease/6457992 On-going vigilance is urged; there are still new cases in neighbouring Sierra Leone and Guinea, and diseases do not respect national jurisdictions.

Food/Science/Uncategorised

14 May 2015

To the curious observers of natural phenomena

One of the Museum’s latest acquisitions is this late 18th century halfpenny token which features images of three exotic animals, ‘The Kanguroo, The Armadillo and The Rhinoceros’. Thomas Hall, a taxidermist and curiosity dealer, produced these tokens to advertise his ‘house of curiosity’, otherwise known as the Finsbury Museum, which he operated from his home at 10 City Road, London. The token illustrates the fascination and curiosity shown by the British public in the late 18th...

Art/Uncategorised

11 May 2015

Moving to still

One characteristic of water is that it is always moving, albeit at very different rates. Even ice moves. Alice Outwater in her book Water: A Natural History, says that ‘A single water molecule making its way through a stream and forest ecosystem is on a biological Ferris wheel. A raindrop may hit a leaf, trickle down to the bark of a branch, evaporate to come back down again as rain...

Uncategorised/Water

8 May 2015

Strange Objects for Strange Times

We live in strange times. Strange weather, strange financial markets, strange technologies are all about us, and anxiety is at high levels. The Great Acceleration of global change can leave humans stranded, feeling stressed and out of time. One of the ways we can respond to this is to slow down, rather than speed up, for survival. Slow Media are increasingly important in strange and fast times. Museums are places...

Uncategorised

6 May 2015

Museums as Places for Imagining the Future of Cities

Dr Steven Fleming has been poking the hornets nest that is urban planning for over a decade, with his mission to put cycling on the agendas of architects, politicians, designers and academics. Together with his colleague Professor Angelina Russo, he has been holding a series of provocative workshops around the country to get people thinking about the potential for bicycles to change the shape of our cities and the way we live. What’s...

Climate change/Cycling/Landscapes/Museum practice

4 May 2015

An artistic interpretation

One of the most interesting aspects of working as a curator is observing how different people interpret objects in different ways. Some people may look at a writing box and see a functional object made to serve a specific purpose, others may view it as an object which tells the story of a person, place or event, and some may even experience an emotional response. Last week, I was privileged to gain an insight into how a contemporary artist is interpreting...

Art/Landscapes/Museum practice/Uncategorised

1 May 2015

Helpful to harmful

Remember Goldilocks? She was the girl who liked her porridge not too hot, not too cold but just right. When it comes to water, humans are just like her. Too much water is just as bad as too little, and it has to be just right. Water is so essential to human endeavour that it is hard to keep this brief. On the helpful side of the equation, water is...

Uncategorised

21 April 2015

Seeing seaweed

I’ve never really been all that keen on seaweed. At least, not until recently, when a nineteenth century album of pressed seaweed specimens began to open my eyes to the wonderful world of marine macroalgae. Now I find seaweed changing how I see and think about Australia.

Climate change/Landscapes/Museum practice/Plants/Seaweed/Uncategorised/Water

10 April 2015

Rabbiting on

Last week, I talked to Mikey Robins about rabbits.

Rabbits

7 April 2015

A tale of extremes

There are few substances on the planet more changeable than water. As ice, water, and gas, water impacts almost every aspect of our lives. This blog post looks at places in Australia which have very distinct climates because of water’s ability to change form, from gas, to water, to ice. In particular, it looks at places where the extremes are reached. Welcome to the watery edge.

Water

27 March 2015

Domestic to industrial

Water enables so many tasks in the world that sometimes, we can forget how essential it is. At the domestic level we use water to drink, cook with, clean ourselves and our clothes and to keep our gardens growing. Industrially, water is a vital input to many industries but perhaps the most well recognised is the agricultural industry. This post takes a look at two objects, relating to the home...

Uncategorised

20 March 2015

Introduced to native

The history of water includes the history of gardening. Different species have different water needs, reflecting their place of evolution. When European settlers arrived in Australia full of images of lush meadows and verdant trees, based on their lived experience in many cases, a kind of cognitive dissonance happened. The old environmental reality and their new reality didn’t match up. This gap has been slowly closing over time, and we...

Uncategorised

17 March 2015

A photo finish…

After six months on show, the Spirited horses are returning to their stables and paddocks for a well-earned rest. From 11 September 2014 to 9 March 2015, over 52,000 people visited the Spirited exhibiton, enjoying a stream of associated tours, talks, holiday programs and events. If you missed the exhibition, National Museum photographers George Serras and Jason McCarthy captured Spirited from every angle so that we can continue to explore, share and reflect on Australia’s horse story.

Horses/Museum practice/Uncategorised

10 March 2015

The everything of water

This blog post introduces a series of essays that explore the meanings of water in Australian history and contemporary life. I’m Kylie Carman-Brown, and when I joined the National Museum last year, I volunteered in the People and the Environment curatorial team. I wrote a series of thematic essays that applied ideas I’d developed in my PhD project to better understand water-related objects in the National Historical Collection. My PhD thesis explored the internationally significant...

Uncategorised

6 March 2015

Women in science – Dr Germaine Joplin

This International Women’s Day (March 8) we’re reflecting on the remarkable achievements of little-known yet talented Australian petrologist Dr Germaine Joplin (1903-1989). 50 years ago women were particularly prominent in the field of geology, yet they struggled to gain recognition and acceptance among their male counterparts. Today, the gender gap is still a concern for Australian science. Leading Australian scientists explored the reasons for this in 2011 in The Conversation. Despite outstanding...

Art/Landscapes/Science

6 March 2015

Women on wheels – blazing the trail

When Australian track cyclist Anna Meares collected her 11th world championship medal a week ago in Paris it was another remarkable victory in a stellar career. On International Women’s Day, it is worth remembering that Meares’ remarkable achievements rest on the shoulders of giants. Her success and international prominence would be unlikely had it not been for the courageous and pioneering work of thousands of female cyclists who battled prejudice and discrimination...

Cycling/Uncategorised

27 February 2015

Coffee and bushrangers in gold country

Anyone unlucky enough to have encountered me sans my morning coffee knows that this is when I’m at my most desperate, perhaps my most murderous. I feel deprived, entitled to what I believe is my just deserts, and I’ll stop at nothing to get it. By ‘it’ I mean coffee and I know I’m not alone out there. So it was no surprise to learn that the popularisation of coffee...

Uncategorised

18 February 2015

Is Cycling Normal?

A month ago, the television game show Family Feud, set fire to the Twitterverse with this question: ‘What is something annoying cyclists do?’ The highest scoring categories, which the contests had to predict, including such gems as ‘Riding in the driving lane’, ‘wearing lycra’, and, my personal favourite, ‘everything’. You might argue with me about the extent that Family Feud is an barometer of social values in this country, but I fear...

Cycling/Uncategorised