All posts by Naomi Parry

Historian, heritage consultant, museums person. contact@naomiparry.net
Heritage news

Viewing the Powerhouse from the suburbs

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Screen shot 2015-03-01 at 6.23.32 PM I must admit to a sense of dismay when I read this week that the NSW Government, having announced its intention to take the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta, is going to sell the building to developers. As well as seeming hasty – the new site at Parramatta hasn’t been picked yet – turning it into apartments strikes me as a terrible waste of an iconic site, and represents the loss of an important piece of the city’s cultural and built heritage.

I love the Powerhouse. When I was working at Eskbank House in Lithgow the Powerhouse’s Regional Services team supported me while I learned how to manage a museum, guided me through conservation issues and (literal) disaster, and took me in for two weeks as an intern to show me the ropes. I’ve since produced work for the Migration Heritage Centre, which is based there. It’s been really terrible to hear how many staff have been made redundant while this government has waged war on the public service and the state’s cultural institutions. It seems the Powerhouse has lost a disproportionate number of people (including the Regional Services team) and I know they took a huge amount of knowledge capital with them when they left.

Still, while I think it is hasty to announce a site is for sale before the occupants have a new home to go to, and I can’t help but be fearful about losing even more of the Powerhouse’s amazing knowledge bank, I’m no longer sure that it’s a bad thing for the institution to leave the CBD. The building is bursting at the seams, as is its annexe and repository at Castle Hill. The displays look outdated and it would be very hard to reconfigure them, given the limitations of the building. The process of moving and making modern and innovative displays in a new building is a huge opportunity – it will generate a rush of energy that will create work and provide new skills and jobs for all sorts of people (and maybe even myself).

Also, it would be in Western Sydney. I know it’s probably no coincidence that a Deloitte report for the Sydney Business Chamber and Liverpool, Parramatta and Penrith Councils was released this week, as debate over the Parramatta site and the Powerhouse relocation swirls – governments and their lobbyists are so often lock-step when they are softening us up for unpalatable truths – but read this:

[The report found] taxpayers spend more than four times more money on subsidising each visitor to venues in Sydney’s CBD compared with western Sydney.
Taxpayers spent an estimated $112.50 on each visitor to the Australian Museum and $74.93 for the Sydney Opera House. The subsidy for each visitor to the Riverside Theatres was $14.15 and Joan Sutherland Performance Arts Centre a mere $6.20.
The report recommends spending $300 million on cultural infrastructure in western Sydney over the next five years and a doubling of the state government arts funding in the region.
It recommends major upgrades to existing venues such as Parramatta’s Riverside Theatres, establishing a new cultural facility in Liverpool and a permanent external performing arts venue.
More provocatively, the report suggests two major tertiary institutions – the Australian Film, Television & Radio School and National Arts School – should relocate to western Sydney. It also backs the already-mooted move of Powerhouse Museum from its present site in inner-city Ultimo.
Apart from two historic homes situated in western Sydney, no major state cultural institution is based in the region.

I live even further west than the western suburbs, so feel this cultural divide quite keenly. As I’ve become involved with the Parramatta Female Factory Project I’ve also been getting to know Parramatta better. It’s a great place, with a lovely CBD, just 30 minutes by train from the city centre. It is enormously rich in heritage, and deserves better than it gets in terms of arts funding. It will mean a lot, to a lot of people, to have a big institution in the geographical centre of this great city – the last I heard, that geographical centre was some ways to the west of even Parramatta, but I am sure we westies would all much rather head to Parramatta than fight our way into the CBD. While it’s upsetting that an institution with a history that stretches back to 1879 will be forced to relocate, the Powerhouse only moved to its current site in 1988 (in ‘Stage One’ of a big redevelopment). Back then the Powerhouse had a name for innovation and excitement. I think the western suburbs deserve to have a bit of that. Stage Two, head west?

This weekend some of my twitter mates have asked whether the government would consider taking an eastern suburbs hospital and relocating it west. My first response to that was to nod my head and tut … and then I remembered. In the 1980s and 1990s, Neville Wran, the same premier who opened the Powerhouse on its new site, began moving hospital services into the western suburbs. This work was continued by the Greiner Government, well into the 1990s. As a result, the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children moved from Camperdown and became Westmead Children’s Hospital, where it serves western Sydney and beyond, with distinction. We really couldn’t do without it. Hospitals like South Sydney Women’s Hospital, Crown Street Hospital and St Margaret’s Public were all rolled into other services, providing funding that was released to support hospitals and birthing units in the west. In the 1980s, if you lived in the Blue Mountains or Penrith and got cancer or suffered kidney failure you had to go to Royal North Shore, but our dogged local pollies convinced their cabinet colleagues to fund renal, cardiac and oncology units in Nepean and Liverpool. I know there is still a disparity in hospital funding but Nepean and Liverpool hospitals are no longer regional outposts. They are fully-functioning tertiary institutions that conduct research, attract talented staff, support smaller local hospitals and community health measures, and provide care that is close to home.

So, in truth, eastern suburbs hospitals were taken west, and the west, and its people, is better for it in innumerable ways. I am quite sure that moving the Powerhouse would have the same effect. Of course it would be terrible if there was no extra funding allocated for this move. We need more money overall for the arts, not a simple shift of dollars from east to west. I also hope the Ultimo site is retained – it’s a special building and would work well as a ‘Powerhouse lite’ to serve time-poor tourists and tempt the inquisitive further westward. However, I’m looking forward to being able to cut 45 minutes off every trip I take to catch some culture, by getting off the train at Parramatta.

The future of the site was discussed by Philip Thalis, a wise architect, in The Conversation on Monday 2 March. He’d like to keep a city Powerhouse too.

Writing

On editing, and how I hope it helps my writing

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The Seattle Daily Times Editorial Department

Even though I have always fussed over the way words look on a page, and their spelling, and think quite a lot about matters of grammar and punctuation, I know I am too green at this editing gig to claim any particular insight. It’s a scary role because readers notice editors most when they don’t do their job, as recently happened in a fine Australian novel I just devoured, where the phrase ‘slither of moon’ got past the keeper.

I do like editing though. Because I write, I know how hard it is to find the word that says what you want it to say, so I like taking someone else’s paragraph and thinking very hard about what the author has said but yet might want to say, and about what the subject might need said about it. I like homing in on the author’s insights, and gently moving words about, and changing and adding a few, until the piece says more about what the writer wanted to say, and what the subject needed said.

I like big movements too, shifting sentences and paragraphs about, to change the weight in the story and shift the pace. Then, when you feel it all runs properly, you get to smooth it down, apply grammar rules and the house style, check the spelling and send it, nicely polished, into the world. Your own hand is invisible, but you hope your author shines, free from any typo that might make a reader think less of them, or the publication you’ve worked on.

I hope this process also helps me, not just as an editor, but as a writer. When I say that I’m not talking about producing more perfectly punctuated essays. I mean that, while I trim someone else’s qualifiers and adjectives, I hope I will be confident enough to write without their protective padding. While I flip someone else’s sentences around to change the voice from passive to active, I hope I will myself be brave enough to write boldly and clearly. When I shift the weight of someone else’s paragraphs, I hope I will know where the weight should sit in my own stories, and how to pace them.

Being an editor also makes me hope for a good editor for myself – that, should I fail to do those things when I write, a careful eye will make sure my stories are well-weighted and flow, that my voice is brave, and my moons are in slivers.

Awards, Good news

Some lovely news

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I’ve been working and thinking on the life of Musquito since 2004, when I wrote an entry on him for the Australian Dictionary of Biography. At the height of the History Wars I had stoushes in print with Keith Windschuttle over this man, and have written one full-length scholarly article, for Aboriginal History, called ‘”Hanging no good for blackfellow”: looking into the life of Musquito’. However, since 2007 life got in the way of me writing a full-length biography, and Musquito has been sitting on my back-burner for a good long while, despite my passion for his story.

Things shifted a little last year. Kristyn Harman featured Musquito in her 2012 book Aboriginal Convicts, which got some well-deserved attention, including from Radio National’s late-lamented Hindsight. I was honoured to be included in that programme, which aired last year. I made a commitment to myself to get rolling on writing about him, once I’ve completed my current (wonderful) paid jobs.

So, it’s very exciting to start 2015 with news that I have been awarded the State Library of NSW National and State Libraries Australasia Honorary Fellowship for 2015, for a project I’ve called ‘Musquito: a life from the archives’. I am also delighted to say that I have been shortlisted for the 2015 Writers’ Victoria Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship, which will be announced in Adelaide on 4 March. It’s a fine shortlist to be on, as you can see here. Although I’ve written all my life, I see myself very much as a beginner, and it’s quite scary to take the plunge into writing full-time. The National and State Libraries Australasia Honorary Fellowship and the shortlisting for the Hazel Rowley Fellowship provide very necessary encouragement, and I am honoured, chuffed and inspired.

Most importantly, the interest shown by the judges is validation of the project. Musquito was a remarkable man, who experienced all the worst that convict and colonial society had to offer, and there is much to reflect on in his life, his milieu, and the ways he chose to live.

 

Good news, Writing

A new job

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"War Chest" Sock Appeal, May 1917 : 3 photos of workers handling goods by G. A. Hills, State Library of New South Wales, digital order number a6136003
“War Chest” Sock Appeal, May 1917 : 3 photos of workers handling goods by G. A. Hills, State Library of New South Wales, digital order number a6136003

Tomorrow I start a new job at Sydney Uni as the Project Coordinator of the NSW Centenary of Anzac Book Project. To say that I am excited about spending the next year or so rummaging around in the photo collections of the State Library of NSW, State Records, the NSW War Memorial and a range of other institutions to find images of life in NSW during World War I would be a serious understatement. Squee!

Uncategorized

To Mark Scott, on news of swingeing ABC cuts

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[inspired by this Guardian Australia report about forecast cuts to news and current affairs on ABC TV and radio]

Dear Mark,

I am a 45 year old historian, who pretty much lives online, owing to a series of paid jobs as a digital content producer and an obsession with news and current affairs, as well as twitter. When I am not online I am listening to ABC Radio, or watching ABC TV live, by podcast and iView. I am exactly the demographic you need to keep (and I’m raising three kids to be ABC fanatics as well).

As a historian, I particularly value the work of the Hindsight unit, and have myself contributed research and my voice for two stories this year – one aired in March and the other this weekend. I volunteered my time for these programs because I believe in them, and I have been impressed by the depth of research of the producers. Hindsight is so respected by historians that it regularly earns awards from peers, as it did this year in the multi-media category at the NSW Premiers’ History Award.

Programs like Hindsight, Stateline and Lateline provide quality research that endures beyond the news cycle – I regularly listen to five year old ABC programs in my work. They add value to the ABC’s digital presence, and make it worth wading through the stream of news grabs. Having lived and worked in Tasmania and regional New South Wales, I also understand the value of local content. I mourn the cuts already made, and cannot imagine what it will be like for those communities if they don’t hear from Stateline or Bush Telegraph, which tell stories of the places they live.

There has to be space for reflection and research in ABC content. Digital doesn’t have to mean dumb – if anything, the flexibility of digital broadcasting is an argument for providing rich content and diverse voices across a range of platforms. But you have to keep making that content, using trusted names that hold your older demographic, but keep us younger ones engaged.

Dr Naomi Parry
Sent from my iPad

Articles, Good news, Heritage news, Uncategorized, Writing

Hot off the press

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Silent System, available from Australian Scholarly Press
Silent System, available from Australian Scholarly Publishing

Thursday was a milestone for me, as it was my last official day with the Find & Connect web resource. I was distracted from this sad moment by the Canberra launch of Silent System: Forgotten Australians and the institutionalisation of women and children, edited by Paul Ashton and Jacqueline Z Wilson and published just days ago by Australian Scholarly Publishing. I’m proud to say it contains an article by me, called ‘Tracing the Past: the Find & Connect web resource’, which sits amongst work by Shurlee Swain and Nell Musgrove, Lily Hibberd, Wilson and Ashton, Dolly McKinnon, Tracy Ireland, Denis Byrne, Maria Tumarkin and many other luminaries.  The book explores women’s incarceration, sites of conscience, and memory.

As I’ve noted previously on this blog, Silent System came about after a conference last September, that engaged with the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct and the women and children who lived at the site, under government supervision, from 1820 until the last decade of the 20th century. The site has, in stages, contained the Parramatta Female Factory, the Male Orphan School, the Roman Catholic Orphan School and, under various names, the Girls Industrial School. It contains ancient buildings and a lot of hard-lived history, and has been the focus of a ten-year campaign by Bonney Djuric, founder of Parragirls, for public recognition of the critical heritage values of the site and its value as a Site of Conscience.

As it turned out, on the day of the launch the NSW Premier announced that the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct [North Parramatta Heritage Precinct] will be sensitively redeveloped as a cultural heritage precinct. This is a huge achievement for Bonney, and for a number of key groups in the area.

One of the best things about working on the Find & Connect web resource was engaging with committed stakeholders and advocates like Bonney. I’m very much hoping to maintain my involvement, into the future.

Heritage news

Vale Brewarrina’s Café De-Luxe

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‘Living history… Angelo and Margaret Pippos continue the Café De Luxe’s tradition of serving Brewarrina for 84 years.’ Photo: Edwina Pickles, from Saffron Howden’s ‘Brewarrina without Café De Luxe would be a Greek tragedy’, The Land, 23 August 2010.

According to ABC news on twitter this morning, the legendary Café De-Luxe, in Brewarrina’s main street, has burned down. A 2010 article from The Land made the point that Brewarrina without this café would be a tragedy, but alas, it has come to pass.

I spent a week in Bre during the 2000 Olympics, and had a chocolate milkshake every day at Café De-Luxe. The vaulted fibro interior of the café was cool and inviting in a town that, even in early September, was stinking hot. It’s terribly sad to think that the ornate bar, the display cabinets and the precious silverware, accumulated over nearly 90 years of continuous service of ice cream sundaes, is all gone. What a loss for the Pippos family and the township, and for lovers of Greek cafés everywhere.

Leonard Janiszewski and Effy Alexakis at Macquarie University have done beautiful exhibitions and a book documenting Greek cafés, including this one, but it’s not quite the same as being in the real, atmospheric, deal. Every time we lose one of these rare survivors, it really is a tragedy.

Articles, Good news, Heritage news, Writing

A launch

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Visit by Mrs May to Girls’ Institution, Parramatta, 1939 [Hood Collection, NCY43/265, State Library of NSW]
This is the first official post of this blog, so welcome and hello. I thought I would start with some news, so here ’tis.

This week I am heading to Canberra for the launch of Silent System: Forgotten Australians and the Institutionalisation of Women and Children, which is edited by Paul Ashton and Jacqueline Z Wilson and is being published by Australian Scholarly Publishing this month. It features an article I wrote called ‘Tracing the Past: the Find & Connect web resource’.

The book is the result of a symposium held last year at the University of Technology, Sydney, which was hosted by Transforming Cultures and the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Memory Project, an offshoot of the remarkable work of Parragirls, and of Bonny Djuric. Over two days, a diverse group of scholars and artists talked about memory, museums and history, while exploring the Parramatta Female Factory site and the stories of the convict women and Forgotten Australians who lived there, under the strictest of government controls.

I began my involvement with Parragirls when I joined the Find & Connect web resource in 2011, but I had learned about the Parramatta Girls Home in the 1990s, when I was beginning my studies into child welfare history for my PhD. The institution began in 1887, when girls under sentence for petty crimes or being ‘neglected’ were moved from the Biloela Industrial School to the buildings formerly occupied by the Roman Catholic Orphan School. The new institution, Parramatta Girls’ Industrial School, survived in various forms on the same site until 1983, and more than 10,000 girls passed through its doors. The Parragirls website is a powerful guide to this place, that brings together all the usages of the site from the 1820s until after 2000, and you should read it at once.

It’s been a great honour and privilege to meet Bonnie Djuric and Parragirls, and to become acquainted with the work of the Parramatta Female Factory Memory Project, and that of artist Lily Hibberd. It’s fabulous that so many fine scholars have engaged with this site to produce the articles that feature in this book and although I have a mad week of busy ahead, I’m looking forward to this launch immensely. It will be bittersweet, as it takes place on the last day of my contract with the Australian Catholic University, and marks a pause in my work with the Find & Connect web resource. But it’s a good way to go out, celebrating the work of recovery and recognition, and the movement of these formerly hidden and private stories into the scholarly domain.

This photo dates from the early-mid 1970s. It appeared in Esther Han’s Herald Sun article of 4 November 2012, ‘Female Factory Tales to be Told.’ It was captioned ‘”Inmates” of the Parramatta Girls Home. Photo: Jeffrey Smith’, but was most probably taken by a Government Printing Office photographer, to promote Kamballa, the institution that succeeded Parramatta Girls’ Home. I assume the girls’ eyes were blacked out by Mr Smith.