+the magazine of the powerhouse museum summer 04/05

+ 16 powerline summer 04/05
DR NICHOLAS G PAPPAS, PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF
TRUSTEES, REFLECTS ON OUR 125TH ANNIVERSARY AND
THE ‘WORLDWIDE INTELLECTUAL TRADITION’ OF MUSEUMS.*
celebration of the earthly
The Powerhouse Museum’s reputation as an
Australian cultural institution of the highest calibre
has grown over 125 years — from a multi-faceted and
rich entity born out of the ashes of the Garden
Palace in the Botanic Gardens to its present home
within the magnificent shell of the Ultimo Power
Station.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, museums were
designed deliberately to resemble older ceremonial
monuments, such as palaces or temples. The
decision to install the early predecessor of the
Powerhouse, the elegantly named Technological,
Industrial and Sanitary Museum, in the Garden Palace
was based on such a premise. A museum had to look
like a museum, and classical adornments were
considered essential.
It could be argued that the fondness for heavy Greek
pediments and entablatures harked back to a more
pagan appearance, so that the post-Enlightenment
dichotomy between Church and State could be
publicly reinforced. The underlying message was that
museums were closer to the questioning and less
inhibited world of the ancients, rather than to the
narrower moral confines of pre-Enlightenment
Europe.
However, the origins of such liberal attitudes came
many centuries before: the famous Museum of
Alexandria, which flourished for over 600 years, was
the first symbol of a pagan yearning for the
systematic collection, organisation and preservation
celebrating 125 years
of knowledge. Closer to the modern university, it was
the first attempt to establish a ‘worldwide’ (in the
sense of those times) intellectual tradition. Long
before museums became places where the ritual of
nation-building was practised (as in the great colonial
museums of the 19th century), the Museum of
Alexandria had developed into an independent,
abundantly secular place of learning that, in turn,
spawned great research centres throughout the Near
East and beyond after the 7th century.
It is a sad fact, and today a touch ironic, that cities
like Baghdad and Beirut — which feature in our
current exhibition Beirut to Baghdad: communities,
collecting and culture and could trace their cultural
enlightenment to Alexandria — were for so many
centuries names emblematic of high learning, while
western Europe was floundering upon its own
religious divisions and cultural inwardness.
Which brings me back to the Powerhouse Museum. If
one word suitably describes this institution's qualities,
it is its ‘secularism’. This is a museum in the tradition
of the Museum of Alexandria. It is a celebration of the
earthly, of the temporal, even occasionally of the
profane. Nestled as it is in the vast embrace of a
disused power station — what grander symbol could
there be of the Powerhouse's earthliness — the
Powerhouse is a place where the indomitable human
spirit to improve his or her lot is exalted on a lay altar.
It makes the Powerhouse, I suggest, a truly
international museum, a place that uniquely
succeeds in attracting multiple and separate
audiences and thereby transcends narrow cultural or
artistic boundaries.
This became most apparent to me only some three
months ago. On 1 July this year, I was privileged to
represent the Powerhouse at the opening in Athens
of our exhibition Our Place: Indigenous Australia now,
Australia's official gift to the Cultural Olympiad
program of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Here
was an exhibition that dealt openly and honestly
about contemporary Indigenous culture and about
some of the more unsavoury chapters in relations
between the European and Indigenous communities,
experiences that have shaped and informed the
Indigenous community's significant cultural output.
The international audience that viewed the exhibition
that opening night in Athens was struck by its
honesty and by its sense of robust independence. On
that night, I felt very much that the Powerhouse had
come of age internationally by proclaiming beyond
Australia's own shores our nation's pride in the
cultural traditions and achievements of its Indigenous
communities. I also sensed that night from the
reactions of those present that the Powerhouse had
become an acknowledged part of that ‘worldwide
intellectual tradition’, which was first inspired by the
Museum of Alexandria so many centuries ago.
And so we look ahead hopefully to another 125 years
of growth and prosperity. Yes, there will be
challenges. But the future is bright for the
Powerhouse Museum.
* This is an edited version of Dr Pappas’ speech to the Life Fellows Dinner
on 23 September 2004.
FROM LEFT: POWERHOUSE MUSEUM PRESIDENT DR NICHOLAS PAPPAS, HER EXCELLENCY PROFESSOR MARIE BASHIR, GOVERNOR OF NSW, AND MUSEUM DIRECTOR DR KEVIN FEWSTER. PAUL DYER, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF
THE AUSTRALIAN BRANDENBURG ORCHESTRA, AND DR KEVIN FEWSTER. DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD RECIPIENT JANE DE TELIGA WITH RAE DE TELIGA AND MUSEUM TRUSTEE ANDREW DENTON. MARLENE KERR AND
DENIS KERR, DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR SHARP AUSTRALIA ON THE GARDEN PALACE PROMENADE. DAVID TERRAZAS, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, AUSTRALIAN GRAPHIC DESIGN ASSOCIATION, AND JUDY DONE. PHOTOS BY
MARINCO KOJDANOVSKI.
OPPOSITE: THE GARDEN PALACE PROMENADE, SPECIALLY CREATED FOR THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY, WAS A LIVING LINK WITH THE MUSEUM’S ORIGINAL SITE. THE 1890S TERRACOTTA STATUE BY DOULTON IS ONE OF A PAIR,
GIFT OF LEO SCHOFIELD. THE STONE COLUMNS FORMED PART OF THE EARLY MUSEUM’S ECONOMIC GEOLOGY DISPLAY. PHOTO BY SUE STAFFORD.