Powerhouse Volunteers

Matthew Boulton’s Coining Press

Cate shares insights from curator Debbie Rudder on what she has been working on – a great read for all our Steam enthusiast volunteers:

Just before the Summer holiday break, I had the great fortune to run into retired curator Debbie Rudder. Debbie has written much about the Boulton and Watt, along with our Steam Collection and has always been a favourite of the volunteer walkthroughs. We had a lovely time catching up and I asked what she had been working on. Please read below for Debbie’s written response, which is a gem for all our Steam enthusiast volunteers:

Hello Cate,

You asked me if I’d written anything lately that might be of interest to Volunteers.

When I arrived home, I recalled the intriguing drawings directly behind the B&W engine (on the ground floor of the extended exhibition). I did spend a lot of time this year analysing them and related objects, which were originally thought to be architectural drawings, but which I realised are mostly engineering drawings. Sorting through them, identifying and understanding them was quite a big task.

I wrote about the main drawing on that wall, of the St Petersburg Mint equipment, some years ago.

Drawing of St Petersburg Mint showing Boulton & Watt engine

The other drawing that I know is there is of a ‘vacuum trumpet’ for a British Mint coining press. You can read my analysis of the object on the MAAS website.

Drawing of vacuum trumpet and fly for British Mint

Drawing of vacuum pump for British Mint coining press

I found the related vacuum pump drawing (shown right) to be of particular interest, and hope I am right in stating that this was the first use of vacuum in an industrial process. Of course, Boulton & Watt’s engineers were very familiar with its use in steam engines, so it’s not surprising that they applied the concept to minting.

A nice rendered drawing of one of those presses (with boy feeding blanks into it) can be seen below and here.

I think there are one or two other drawings reproduced beside the vacuum trumpet. I wish I had thought to look today! If any Volunteers are interested in them, they could put the search term ‘british mint boulton’ into OPAC and look for them.

Regards,
Debbie

Flashback Friday – Egyptian Mummies Exhibition

This week Jacinta reflects on the amazing Egyptian Mummies exhibition

While we look back on all the amazing things the Powerhouse has done, I thought I would reflect on one of my favourite exhibitions and programs to grace our halls – The Egyptian Mummies: Exploring Ancient Lives exhibition!

The exhibition consisted of six mummies selected from the British Museum collection who lived and died in Egypt between 1800 and 3000 years ago, on display alongside their 3D CT scan visualisations that unlock hidden secrets of mummification and provide a unique insight into the everyday lives of ancient Egyptians. It was a phenomenal exhibition that combined history, science and design and it was widely loved by staff and visitors alike!

Corresponding with this exhibition was the first rendition of the Museum’s activation program, whereby staff would dress as characters and invite visitors outside of the exhibition space to enjoy the wonders of Egypt, (this also resulted in lots of ticket sales too!). In this program you would dress as either a mummy, or an archeologist, and teach visitors about very simple Hieroglyphics (like in the image below).

It was a phenomenal exhibition with some incredible artefacts, and kids loved the mummy element, (we were often asked to ‘Dab’ or ‘floss’ or ‘dougie’) combined with learning something new! Isn’t it interesting to think about how different languages are? And isn’t it interesting to think how much Western funeral rites differ from ancient Egyptian rites for royals?

Jacinta Gregory
Volunteer Programs Officer

The joy of being back on site

Jacinta shares her experience of the first week back with volunteers at the museum and the curator led tour of Clay Dynasty

First week back – Welcome to the museum

It’s been absolutely incredible to be back on the floor again offering tours, talks and conversations to members of the public. After four months of semi-isolation it feels wonderful to be in a museum space again, hearing and sharing stories about the incredible collection the Powerhouse has to offer.

Today, we were fortunate enough to get a curator led tour led by Eva Czernis-Ryl of Clay Dynasty. The exhibition celebrates studio ceramics in Australia as shaped by three generations of makers: from the 1960s pioneers who transformed the functional pottery tradition to contemporary ceramic artists who continue to push the medium. It’s the first major exhibition to chart the astonishing diversity of ceramic practice across Australia, and features more than 400 objects from the Powerhouse’s significant ceramics collection.

I was illuminated as to early creator philosophies such as : “You’re a potter not an artist”, how many of these works are the way they are because of locally sourced materials, eg: many Bowls and plates created in China being green. And, how pottery is so deeply based in family tradition, passed down from generation to generation. This is one of the reasons why the exhibition itself is called Clay Dynasty.

I am excited to find out more about the incredible new spaces that have opened, but myself and the Wednesday volunteers walk away from our first day back with newfound knowledge, and a hunger to learn more!

Jacinta Gregory
Volunteer Program Officer

Flashback Friday – DigiVol

This week for Flashback Friday, Karen shares the valuable contribution volunteers have made working on DigiVol, the Australian Museum’s digitalisation project

Remember back to our first lockdown?, many of our volunteers decided to help online with the Australian Museum’s digitisation program, DigiVol.

As a DigiVol Online volunteer you make vital contributions of transcribing text from images of specimen labels, field notes and archival material. It was a perfect task during lockdown!

This year DigiVol is celebrating 10 Years!. Have a read of the article below to learn more:

In 2011, the collection manager of Entomology removed a drawer full of Cicada’s from a vast room of insects hidden away in a room below the public space at the AM. The drawer was handed to a team of volunteers filled with nervous energy; this was their first opportunity to put their skills to the test and get a sneak peek into collections not accessible to the public. The task was to delicately remove each specimen from the draw, along with its label which contains important data about the specimen, and to take a photograph.
This was the beginning of the successful collaboration between the Australian Museum and the Atlas of Living Australia, the first specimens to be digitized by the AM, and the birth of the crowdsourcing citizen science project known as DigiVol.
Museum collections could be compared to an iceberg, the portion above the water’s surface is what is visible to the public, however below the surface there are volumes of material that often goes unseen. Digitisation makes the often unseen visible to a global audience, it protects collections from future loss and makes data more readily available to research.
Since its humble beginnings in 2011 DigiVol lab volunteers have contributed 60,000 hours to create 682,000 digital records. The DigiVol online community have completed more than 8 million transcriptions, and contributed more than 140,000 Hours in the past 2 years. 10 years on and you could say that DigiVol is synonymous with digitization – much like the piercing chirp of the cicada is to the Australian summer.
Learn more about DigiVol on the Australian Museum website

Watch out for future volunteer opportunities at the Powerhouse helping digitise Wikipedia.

Karen Griffiths
Volunteer Program Officer

Returning to Onsite Volunteering

This week we welcomed back volunteers to the museum for our daily inductions. For our blog post today, Behind the Scenes volunteer, Marion, recounts her experience and excitement being back at the museum.

It has been wonderful to welcome back volunteers to the Museum this week at our daily inductions. Staff all over the Museum have been so pleased to see the volunteers return, updating them on the exciting new exhibitions and sharing the mysteries of some behind the scenes areas.

But that’s enough from us in the Volunteers Office – behind the scenes volunteer Marion – has the floor to describe the volunteers’ return – from a volunteer’s point of view.

Dear All!
Many thanks for this morning’s training – at the end, we were invited to write about our experience for a Blogpost, so here goes…
It was lovely to catch up with you, and our friends, and other volunteers we hadn’t previously met.
Your presentation was helpful and interesting, and it was fascinating to learn how to ‘tap dance’ through the online tools on our phones – on Safari and Chrome to log ourselves in via the database.
The safety talk by Glen was excellent, and a special thanks to him for showing us the ‘escape route’ from the museum through the tunnels. As someone who usually works behind the scenes rather than in the Museum itself – that was amazing to me!! Who knew they existed?!
Nadiye gave us a sneak peak of the 3D digital photography
Going back to Harwood and seeing all the changes and new staff was wonderful.
As was the 3D digital photography – which we caught a glimpse of from the corridor!
Mel sharing amazing object stories in the basement
As always though, a trip to the Basement was a highlight! Made even more special, for catching up with our former Volunteer Program Officer Mel, who is now working on this team.
It was so interesting to have her introduce us to staff and show how the digitalisation and packing up was progressing. Really exciting!’
Roger identifying a piece of ‘Swedish Gustavsberg, ‘Argenta’, designed by Wilhelm Kage, from the 1930s/40s.’
Of course, Roger Elliott and I were in our element, visiting the ceramics. Roger identified and described a piece of ‘Swedish Gustavsberg, ‘Argenta’, designed by Wilhelm Kage, from the 1930s/40s.’
Marion’s Leeds tea bowl and saucer set
Inspired, I asked if I could have a look at a small, 18^th century teapot, repaired by staples, which I recognised but was not able to place. How shaming since I have a matching Leeds tea bowl and saucer! (see picture).
Looking forward to getting back on deck! – Marion

It is lovely here that the volunteers have enjoyed their induction to coming back onsite. We all look forward to seeing you back on the floor in early December.

Flashback Friday – Work Experience

This weeks Flashback Friday post, we take a wander back to 2018 October Holidays, with work experience student Rayani.

Work Experience at MAAS

What I know now that I didn’t know before!

Before arriving at the Powerhouse Museum, my expectations of the first day went a bit like this. Jump straight into customer services, help out with any tours and guide people with direction if they needed it.

Instead on my first day, my fellow work experience colleague, Christian and I were given a brief tour around the museum before being left to explore different exhibits at our own pace.

At this moment I learned that you have to really get to know the place and gain an understanding of where everything is before you can really be useful.

Looking at the different exhibits I realised just how much work is done behind the scenes to be able to display such amazing objects. There are people who donate and bring in objects for the museum, curators that specifically pick out objects for displays, lovely volunteers who educate the public and bring the exhibits to life and many others who all help in making the Powerhouse Museum the inviting and engaging place it is.

A big highlight for me on the second day was working with the Caitie and Sophie in the holiday workshops where we helped kids make their own YouTube video. It was really interesting to see how green screens worked and just how simple it can be to create your own video. What was really rewarding to see was how excited the kids were and the different takes they all had on their own videos. I was very intrigued to see that the museum opened up to the public and hosted these interactive events where anyone and everyone could learn useful information in a fun manner.

My final day at the museum taught me that volunteering can be a very rewarding job. I saw so many visitors engaged with volunteers, smiling as they learn new things about anything from satellites to reflecting mirrors.

The Powerhouse Museum is not just somewhere where old artefacts are preserved and displayed it’s somewhere where people can spread information and knowledge to others who come to learn that can have a really big impact on their lives. My time here is something I will be taking away and keeping in the back of my mind with whatever I do in the future.

– Rayani Fernando