Highlights from the tennis Australia heritage collections : mini-exhibition in the player cafe, Rod Laver Arena

Summary : This 'mini-exhibition' arose as an opportunity to showcase recent acquisitions as well as established holdings of significant items of tennis related heritage within the Tennis Australia Heritage Collections. In general, the Collections have two main strengths, and the mini-exhibition was designed to communicate these. The first strength is the ability to show the evolution of tennis technology and practices over time, from the beginnings of modern tennis in the 1860s, to today. This evolution is a result of tennis being influenced by changes in the wider world, such as the Industrial Revolution. The second strength of the Collections is in showing the impact and influence of tennis on society. Many items in the Collections are evidence of the immense and enduring popularity of the sport across the world. The Collections contain many beautiful, rare and fascinating items of decorative arts, fashion, literature and social history which feature tennis as a motif. These items show the reverse influence - the deep impression tennis has made outside of the sport itself.  This mini-exhibition focuses on these two themes. Some displays focus on the first theme. They demonstrate the evolution of tennis racquets, tennis balls, instructional publications and other tennis related equipment over the past century and a half. Other displays focus on the second theme. There are cases which examine tennis' influence upon global popular culture, in board games, fashion and decorative arts from around the world.  The mini-exhibition includes items from the U.s, U.K., Germany, France, Austria, Japan and Australia, demonstrating the global phenomenon that tennis quickly became, and showcasing the international scope of the Collections.  Each case contains text panels listing the objects and their specifications, and panels providing contextual information about the display. The miniexhibition is expected to be on display until November 2009. A case-bycase breakdown of objects, with images and a layout map follows.

Real Fiji : group exhibition

“The Real Fiji” features eleven individual artists and twelve young women from the Fiji Women’s Rights Movement Young Women in Leadership project.

An uncanny vernacular : comparing the radical modernisms of Lorine Niedecker and Lesbia Harford

The article demonstrates the similarity in the ways poets Lesbia Harford and Lorine Niedecker explored radical modernism. It notes the formal and thematic resemblances between the poets' writing and careers. It cites their uncanniness of poetics as an indicator of the effective global dissemination and specific political and aesthetic applications of Marxist ideologies in the early 20th century. The poets' attention to and resistance to the limitations of a gendered agency are also discussed.

Study on the visual performance of a vernacular dwelling in Egypt

Vernacular dwelling buildings located in hot arid regions are well known for their sensitive architecture response to the region’s climatic conditions and the socio-cultural norms. The architectural value of these buildings is not only limited to their historical merit, but also to the human conscious adaptation to its context and the optimum utilisation of natural resources creating both a pleasant and a functional environment. The majority of these traditional dwellings are well recognised for their unique perforated fenestration system and courtyard arrangement that evolved to control the harsh solar, climatic conditions without compromising the quality of space and occupants’ wellbeing. However, the successful design of these features and solutions cannot be fully appreciated without understanding the nature of daylight and solar radiation in which these buildings are revealed. This paper investigates the impact of the characteristic of the dense narrow streets of medieval cities on the visual performance of a typical courtyard house in Cairo.The paper examines the daylight  behaviour of one of the well-known historic alleys and of a courtyard house in Cairo. The paper analyzes and measures the variability in the visual perception and comfort for a typical pedestrian street and the occupants of the house using a simulation modelling tool (Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES) software). The paper gives an insight into the overall visual performance of the urban fabric that shapes of the microclimate, which is an important ingredient of the overall identity of the place.

Mussolini and the idealisation of empire : the Augustan exhibition of Romanita

The Augustan Exhibition of Romanita`, held in Rome’s Palazzo delle Esposizioni between 1937 and 1938, exemplifies the aestheticisation, ritualisation and sacralisation of politics during the Fascist era in Italy. This article conducts a multi-layered spatial analysis of the exhibition that considers space as passively experienced, as an agent to re-map memory, as a mediator between intention and reception and as having both physical and mental characteristics. The relative sizes of the spaces, their sequence and their axial placement within the Palazzo’s plan were the most powerful forces that conveyed the exhibition’s overall political and social aims. The Mostra Augustea della Romanita` (MAR) is here analysed as a form of historical representation with a specific narrative which is played out within an orchestrated space in order to create and reinforce a (Fascist) political identity. The idea of Rome took on material aspects through a kind of ‘recognition effect’ for the visitor by presenting Romanita` as a collective mirror in which to view an image of their own social visage. Thus an active connection would, according to the organisers, be forged between a Roman past and a Fascist present, and its two leaders and creators, Augustus and Mussolini, as well as between the individual and society. The MAR also demonstrates the prevalence of the cult of Il Duce in Fascist society and its importance for maintaining high levels of consent. With its focus on a particular view of the ancient world, the MAR was an ephemeral event that acted as teleological justification for the advent and supposed permanence of Fascism, which at the same time presented itself as a unique archaeological, scientific and educational document of the Roman world.