Microscope slides in our Townsville exhibit. (Photo: Jen Wilson)

Curator Jen Wilson has been watching our Townsville exhibit come to life ahead of our opening this week.

As the Townsville showcase came together, the team noticed a surprising array of colour emerge in the nerdy scientific material.

The Townsville exhibit in Landmarks is focused on the story of the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine, established and located in Townsville from 1910 to 1930. As each of the 28 objects in the Townsville was installed, I was reminded of the valuable insight they offer into the work of the institute and the communities which it served.

An assemblage of items – albuminometer, chemical slide rule, differential thermometer and hydrometer – carefully mounted together. (All photos: Jen Wilson)

The instruments are placed on their shelves one at a time.

Between 1910 and 1930, more than 90 staff and visiting scholars worked at the institute. They published hundreds of research papers, articles and books on a variety of medical subjects, from mental health to nutrition and parasitic infections, as studied in the particular conditions of Australia’s tropical north. The institute’s young staff became leaders in their fields, studying diseases within Australia, Papua New Guinea and neighbouring islands, treating patients, mapping disease patterns, and collecting and identifying new infection-carrying parasites and insects.

Mark and Sonja hard at work, with the showcase slowly filling.

Janet cleaning glass so that all the pretty colours could be more greatly appreciated.

In 1930, the institute was relocated to the University of Sydney, despite arguments that it should remain close to its subject of study. Over fifty years later, James Cook University re-established the institute in Townsville. Today, the institute, renamed the Anton Breinl Centre, studies and teaches about public health problems in tropical Australia and its near neighbours, with a special focus on rural and regional Indigenous communities.

A collection of 108 items of laboratory equipment from the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, into which the institute was incorporated when it was relocated to the University of Sydney, was donated to the National Museum of Australia in 1986. Thirty of those items were originally used in the institute in Townsville.

Sonja carefully places a tray of microscope slides into their mount.

Andrew adjusts the photo-micrographic apparatus.

Through generous loans, the Landmarks Townsville exhibit reunites the laboratory equipment with parasites and mosquitoes collected by the institute.

Sonja and Duncan admire the parasites from the other side.

The Townsville case features a back window, so that visitors will catch a glimpse of this strange assemblage of items from the other side of the gallery, hopefully instilling them with curiosity to investigate further.

The final step. Sonja places a finished ‘tick’ on the case.

A very satisfied install team. (Photo: Georgie Benson)

The photo above shows the team assembled, representing a large crew of staff, contractors and advisors who have worked on this story. Captured here are those long dedicated to the Townsville case and its contents, from beginning to end – (l-r) curator Jen Wilson who spent years choosing and researching parasites and microscopes; Janet Mack who ploughed through much of the extensive cataloguing of the microscopes and oversaw their installation; Sonja Kundsen who assessed all of the objects and then installed them; and conservator Andrew Pearce who took care of the objects and spent too much time with parasites and ethanol.

Many thanks to all involved!

Hooray for the tick!

Project manager Belinda Betts and conservator Peter Bucke with Phar Lap's heart. (Photo: Isa Menzies)

Isa Menzies, curator of our Connecting the Nation module, was recently part of the team that installed Phar Lap’s heart. Here Isa shares her photographs of the installation, along with some reflections on one of our most popular objects.

Phar Lap’s heart is the object most often asked for by visitors to the Museum, and when I became the curator responsible for interpreting this iconic object in the new gallery I felt a tremendous sense of responsibility. But I also felt a mixture of both reverence towards, and doubt about, the object itself.

Conservator Cathy Collins tests the pH level of the solution preserving the heart. (All photos: Isa Menzies)

Reverence because I, like many others, was brought up on stories of the heroic horse Phar Lap, who could win anything and became the darling of a nation suffering under the economic depression of the 1930s. The doubt was because I wasn’t sure the heart muscle of a long-dead race horse warranted such widespread adulation. Was he actually a great horse, or do we just accept what we’ve always been told, without any interrogation?

The heart is so fragile that it cannot leave the National Museum building, and any change to its location must be undertaken with care so as to minimise vibration and disturbance of the tissue.

It was while researching the history of Phar Lap that I became a true fan of the horse. He didn’t just win the Melbourne Cup, but 36 other races as well, including the WS Cox Plate twice. The WS Cox Plate is considered by many racing aficionados to be the weight-for-age championship of Australia. Most of his wins were achieved with ease, however he was able to dig in and push for victory when asked, for example in the 1930 Futurity Stakes at Caulfield racecourse, which the jockey, Jim Pike, regarded as the horse’s hardest-won and most gallant victory.

The heart makes its way, with assistance, through the Landmarks gallery space.

Of his 51 starts Phar Lap only finished unplaced nine times. In comparison the modern wonder-horse Makybe Diva raced 36 times and finished out of the money 14 times (she achieved 15 wins and seven places). Phar Lap even raced in America, winning the most prestigious race of the day, the Agua Caliente Handicap and setting a track record, while becoming the third highest stakes winner in the world at that time.

But it isn’t just his impressive track record that sets Phar Lap apart. He emerged onto the racing scene at a time when the media was changing. Newspaper design had moved towards eye-catching headlines and images on the front page, and moving picture technology meant that people could view newsreel footage of races when they went to the cinema. Furthermore, radio broadcasting was taking off, with wireless ownership on the rise. These factors, combined with Phar Lap’s astonishing successes, led to his equine celebrity.

Even eighty years after his death Phar Lap still attracts the paparazzi.

His untimely death also contributed to his memorialisation. The horse died of an arsenic overdose at the age of five, when he would have been at the peak of his physical condition. The mystery surrounding his death has also ascribed him with a larger-than-life quality.

It was with an audible sigh of relief that the team of conservators, registrars, curators and project managers saw the heart placed onto its custom stand and locked into place last week.

Put all these factors together and it’s easy to see how the preserved body parts of Phar Lap – his hide, his heart and his skeleton – have gone from racetrack to reliquary. I wonder what it is that people are looking for when they ask to see Phar Lap’s heart at the Museum. Is the attraction because the heart is unnaturally big? Because it belonged to a celebrity? Because it brings them closer to an Australian legend?

By preserving and displaying his remains we are certainly propagating the myth of Phar Lap. Hopefully our interpretation of the significance of the horse – and the heart – will justify people’s own sense of its importance to them.

Phar Lap’s heart, safely installed into its new home within the Landmarks gallery, where it will stay for the foreseeable future.

A screen from our Sunshine multimedia interactive.

Throughout Landmarks, multimedia plays a role which allows a deeper exploration of places, people and objects. Curator Leah Bartsch tells us about an interactive that she has been developing for our Sunshine exhibit.   

The exhibit about Sunshine in Victoria includes an interactive that looks at the Sunshine Harvester Works, the people who worked there and, of course, the machine that built the factory’s success, the Sunshine harvester. I’ve been working with Georgia Miles from our multimedia team, with lots of greatly appreciated assistance from curator Jen Wilson, and our external multimedia producers, Roar, to bring a horse-drawn Sunshine stripper-harvester to life through an animation which will be included in the Sunshine interactive. 

The Sunshine stripper-harvester (Photo: Lannon Harley)

Stills from the harvester animation by Roar.

 
With the visual elements of the animation almost complete, we then had the task of choosing music to play with the animation. With so many music styles to choose from, it proved to be a more complex process than I thought. There were a number of factors to consider when selecting the music to play with the harvester animation… would the music work with an overlay of horse and harvester sounds… how would the music fit the pace of the animation and the movement of the harvester… what time period are we trying to capture in the animation, and what type of music would people in Australia be listening to at this time… what type of musical instruments would suit the animation… 

This led me on a journey into early 20^th century Australian music and cinema. Our harvester was manufactured in 1911, and, as I mentioned earlier, was horsedrawn. Considering this, it seemed appropriate to capture the silent film period of the 1910s and 1920s, when sound effects and music were provided by live musicians. 

As I watched examples of cartoons and short films from the 1910s and 1920s, I was reminded of a 1977 film called The Picture Show Man, which follows a travelling picture show troupe through country Australia. 

Without the opportunity of having a live pianist create a piece of music which would echo the action of the animation, we chose a prerecorded piece which embraced the feel of the animation. As well as being light hearted and happy, the rhythm of the song also needed to follow the rhythm of the harvester and the pace of action in the animation. 

After listening to many music tracks, we chose a track that had a cheerful, upbeat ragtime feel. Here are some of the songs I found: 

Limehouse Rag
Fig Leaf Rag
Hammock fight
Olde Timey
Four Square Rag 

I won’t tell you which one we chose, you’ll have to come and watch the animation to find out! 

Leah checks out the newly-installed interactive in the gallery. (Photo: Rathicca Chandra)