Inside the Collection

Exhibitions

Inside/Out, Sebastian Zagarella

World AIDS Day 2016

November 28, 2016

Damian McDonald
HIV is still here - and it's on the move For folk who lived through the 1980s, AIDS was an omnipresent gargoyle. The disease was part of the contemporary culture. It had insinuated itself into current affairs stories and commercials, into youth culture, gay culture, tea-room discussions, into jokes, bullying; and into people’s bodies.
Neptune's Daughter poster 1915

Annette Kellerman myths

November 23, 2016

Peter Cox
Sometimes luminaries in popular culture are called 'legends'. A legend is a story that has been handed down and is popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated. The legend of Annette Kellerman goes like this -- born in Marrickville, she recovered from polio as a child, invented the one-piece swimsuit, was arrested in Boston for wearing it and became a Hollywood movie star.
Photograph of 3D Interactive Touchscreens

3D scanning Icons from the MAAS Collection

October 21, 2016

Arul Baskaran
Visitors to the recently opened Icons exhibition will notice two large screens installed in one of the title walls, featuring rotating 3D models of objects from the exhibition. The screens invite visitors to “touch and explore” the 3D models.
Million Dollar Mermaid: Annette Kellerman, exhibition views

Looking for the mermaid: developing the Annette Kellerman visual installation

October 12, 2016

Anni Turnbull
I am still looking for my chest of gold in a cool dripping sea cave -- though a professional mermaid for the movies, I still wait to see my first real one sitting on a damp grey rock combing her long green hair.1 The exhibition Million Dollar Mermaid: Annette Kellerman features a visual installation projected onto a set, creating an immersive, sensory environment.
Out of Hand: materialising the digital, exhibition views.

An interview with Matthew Connell, curator of ‘Out of Hand: Materialising the digital’ exhibition

September 21, 2016

Anni Turnbull
  Matthew Connell, was lead curator on Out of Hand. Here he discusses his approach to the exhibition with fellow MAAS curator Anni Turnbull. What is the exhibition about? It’s a look at the world of digital manufacturing and an acknowledgement that the digital world is now imposing itself on the material world in a way that breaks down a long standing dichotomy.
Kellerman's mermaid costume

Origins of the Annette Kellerman collection

August 12, 2016

Peter Cox
Annette Kellerman's successes in a number of fields are extraordinary. Born in Sydney in 1886, she became an international celebrity as an endurance swimmer, a highly paid entertainer of the vaudeville stage and a star of American silent films. She played a key role in popularising the modern one-piece swimsuit for women, became a successful businesswoman and wrote self-help books about health, beauty and exercise.
Portrait of Stewart Walton

Stewart Walton for ‘Collette Dinnigan: Unlaced’

October 30, 2015

Melanie Pitkin
One of the greatest pleasures when developing a museum exhibition is collaborating with a breadth of highly talented creatives. In the case of Collette Dinnigan: Unlaced, Kat Bond and Fil Bartkowiak in our design team collaborated with Stewart Walton, an artist, illustrator and furniture designer based in England to create our paper doll making activity space.
Poster, 'Wirth Brothers Grand Circus and New York Equescurriculum', printed in Melbourne, late 1880s. Gift of the Wirth family, 2012.

Wirth’s Circus in the Pacific

April 30, 2015

Peter Cox
This series of posts on Australia’s own Wirth’s Circus finishes up today with only a few days left to see our exhibition, Circus Factory. Previous posts have looked at when the Wirth's circus hit the road, how we are exhibiting the Wirth's Circus collection, the family's musical beginnings, the diary of John James Wirth and how the Wirth brothers transformed from band to circus. Photographs and documents in the Museum’s collection reveal the rapid growth of Wirth’s Circus as well as a series of disasters and triumphs they encountered on their first overseas tours.
Photograph of the Wirth family

Wirth’s Circus hits the road

April 8, 2015

Peter Cox
The Circus Factory exhibition includes costumes, photographs and documents from the Museum's Wirth's Circus collection. The Wirth name has a special place in Australian circus folklore. Billed as Australia's own 'Greatest Show on Earth', Wirth's Circus toured from 1880 until its demise in 1963.
'Heel appeal' showcase 2014

Curating shoes: from heel to toe

December 17, 2014

Melanie Pitkin
On 29 November 2014, the Museum opened 'RECOLLECT: Shoes' – a new exhibition inspired by the idea of visible display storage. Comprising more than 800 shoes dating from the 1500s to now, visitors can see everything from the first pair of elastic sided boots in the world made for Queen Victoria in 1837 to designer names like Louboutin, Yves Saint Laurent and Lacroix.