UNESCO and cultural heritage practice in Australia in the 1950s: The international touring exhibition Australian Aboriginal Culture, 1948-55

This article investigates aspects of the production, dissemination and consumption of UNESCO’s first international touring exhibition, Australian Aboriginal Culture, in order to explore the relationship between UNESCO and Australia in the development of a key cultural heritage program. It argues that the exhibition indicates a national and international spirit of universalism that attempted to address crosscultural ignorance in a period of post-war optimism.

Staging modernity: the Semarang international colonial exhibition, 1914

The international exhibitions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are now generally seen as sites for the dissemination of an evolving discourse on modernity's primary theme: progress. These technological and cultural spectacles represented 'the self-congratulatory pride' of the bourgeoisie in their attainment of world power (Corbey 1994:60). The didactic function of international exhibitions lay embedded in their carefully arranged, itemised and annotated displays, as well as in the very architecture within which such displays were housed. It was a pedagogy palely echoed in every elementary classroom and school textbook of the newly created mass education systems of the day (Cote 2000a). The exhibitions were also modern in their embrace of the mass audience and their intentionally populist focus. An exhibition was intended to provide the visitor, already touched by a modern curiosity, with personal access to the wonders of modernity.

A passage from India - Anglo Indians in Victoria : a community gallery exhibition

Drawing on cultural artefacts, images and interactive audio-visual material, this exhibition depicts a vivid portrait of the Anglo-Indian community in Australia.

An architecture of rewards: a new poetics to exhibition design?

This paper argues that the influence of multimedia on exhibition practices can be felt not only by the presence of multimedia interactives in the exhibition itself but more generally by the presence of similar structural principles. The argument is conducted by borrowing from Stephen Johnson’s (2005) thesis that contemporary forms of popular culture, particularly those found in video games, television and film, are based on an ‘architecture of rewards’. In taking this term across to exhibition practices, I use it to analyse an approach to the interpretation of a heritage site, which attempts neither to reconstruct its former uses nor to insert traditional forms of ‘contextual’ displays. Instead, I argue that the curatorial attempt to find ways in which the site could become the principal object of display resulted in the conscious production of narrative gaps which become the structural armature for the encouragement of game playing in a similar process to that discussed by Johnson in relation to video games.

Weissenhof siedlung exhibition

UK sound-artist Scanner (whom we met on the program earlier this year) has been Artist-in-Residence for BBC Radio 4's 'Front Row' arts program where he's been experimenting with the medium of broadcasting. We heard one piece which explores the idea of social spaces in the city - associated with the visionary architectural ideas of Buckminster Fuller.

This morning we are staying with ideas of housing for the modern world.

Stuttgart, Germany, is our place of disembarkation - where in 1927 a modern housing estate - the Weissenhof Seidlung - was built to showcase the very latest work from the biggest names in modern architecture. 33 houses and apartments of all shapes and sizes - unified by their white, cubic streamlined forms.

The Estate is now a national monument and is a site of pilgrimage for architecture fans the world over.

Melbourne's Span Gallery is showing photographs of the Weissenhof Seidlung - and waiting in the wings to take us through it is historian Judith Trimble, joined by our own Rhiannon Brown, and - making a few guest appearances - the master of the modern movement, Le Corbusier, caught on tape here in the late 1950s.

Descant : unlocked tongues [exhibition catalogue]

Catalogue of a solo exhibition dealing with the theme of women's place in a patriarchal society.

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.