2002 SEMINAR SERIES
COLONIALISM AND ITS AFTERMATH
An Interdisciplinary Research Cluster
University of Tasmania
LANGUAGE AND LANDSCAPE SEMINAR
Friday 22 February 2002
PROGRAMME
9.15 -10.45
Hamish Maxwell-Stewart on talking to tourists on the Midland Highway
Trevor Sofield on cultural heritage in China
Paper from Cultural Heritage Branch on the convict coalmines site
(tbc)
Coffee Break
11.15-12.00 Deborah Malor on Russell
Drysdale and the Furneaux Group
12.00-12.45 Grant applications discussion
Lunch (BYO or go to cafe)
1.45- 2.45
Jeff Malpas on place
Roger Fay on the urban landscape
Coffee Break
3.00- 4.00
Anna Johnston on Mr Wilkinson's Bad Language
Ian Green on Aboriginal Art
COLONIALISM AND ITS AFTERMATH
An Interdisciplinary Research Cluster
University of Tasmania
THE WILLOW
COURT PRECINCT
NEW NORFOLK
Friday 19 July 2002
In the earlier notice of this year's second research day, we indicated
New Norfolk as a place to hold the seminar. Since then, much has
happened, and our focus will now be on the Willow Court Precinct,
its historical significance, concepts for its future, and possibilities
for developing (and structuring) connections between our research
cluster and Valley Vision, which a fortnight ago became responsible
for this remarkable site.
The potential afforded for university/industry
connections begins with the organisation of the seminar itself.
The research cluster has booked a bus to take us to New Norfolk;
once there, we will be the guests of Valley Vision. This means that
we are able to offer an extraordinary research day without charging
registration fees for individual participants. Because we know that
in addition to the members of the research cluster who will want
to attend the seminar, there will be other people interested in
this opportunity to learn about the site and become involved in
the project in its ground-breaking phase, we suggest that you book
early by emailing Anna Johnston (anna.johnston@utas.edu.au). If
you know of other people within or outside the University for whom
this seminar would be of particular interest, please ask them to
contact Anna as well. We have booked a bus which seats 55, and will
be happy to fill it. Also, people driving from Launceston and the
north are likely to prefer going straight to New Norfolk, which
makes a closer trip than Hobart. Again, could you please let Anna
know if you will be coming so that catering etc can be arranged.
We are particularly pleased to have a visiting
professor of American Studies, Robert C. Allen from the University
of South Carolina, as a guest for the day, and we will finish the
day at St Ives Hotel, Battery Point, with his paper for the Removing
the Boundaries series.
We know enough about both the site and the
Valley Vision concept to assure you that this seminar will be remarkable
and unforgettable, and we hope to see you in New Norfolk. A brief
history of the site, and schedule for the day follows below.
Lucy Frost and Anna
Johnston
Seminar co-ordinators
THE SITE
Until 2000, the Willow Court Precinct was part of what had become
the Royal Derwent Hospital. Beginning in 1827 when invalid convicts
lived in wooden huts, the site housed men, women, and children with
physical and intellectual disabilities, and psychiatric disorders.
On one edge of a hill, looking out towards the picturesque valley
of the Derwent, an elegant cottage, 'Frescatti', was built in 1834
as a summer retreat where the Lieutenant Governor and his guests
could enjoy the countryside (the cottage is still there, as are
the doubled Hawthorn hedges at the entrance to its drive). This
is today a place of disjuncture, and yet a remarkable site of continuity
as well. No place else in Australia offers a similar history through
architecture of changes to ideas about disability, and that in itself
makes the Willow Court Precinct and the now privately owned later
buildings of the Royal Derwent unique. But there are also multiple
issues of meaning involving such factors as the history of botanical
fashion; medical history as experimental science (the asylum was
using electric shock treatment as early as 1851); the sociology
of a 'caring' community and its re-imaginings of a different sort
of future; the aesthetics of place; the stories told and untold
which circulate around a place of fraught memory; the problems of
how the site can be made to work for the community today and tomorrow.
The sense of both so much to be done, and such a unique opportunity
to do something special, makes visiting the site at the moment a
simply astonishing experience.
THE
SEMINAR PROGRAM
A fortnight ago, ownership of the Willow Court Historic Precinct
was transferred to the Derwent Valley Council, to be developed through
Valley Vision. Our visit is being organised by Ian Brown, of Valley
Vision. We will be joined by people involved in the project, including
the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor (whose knowledge of the site's history
is phenomenal), and the consultant architect. The program is as
follows:
Friday 19 July 2002
9.00 am Bus departs from parking lot in front of the Arts
Building, Sandy Bay Campus
10.00 am Arrive at the Business Enterprise
Centre, New Norfolk
Coffee and briefing, which will introduce a) the Willow Court Precinct
as historic site; and b) the concept of the precinct's future
11.00 am - 1.00 pm Tour of the Site
1.00 pm Return to the Business Enterprise
Centre for a working (sandwich) lunch and discussion of a) how the
research cluster might become involved in the project; and b) how
to create structures which could facilitate that involvement
3.00 pm Bus leaves for Hobart, returning
to the Sandy Bay Campus by 4.00 pm.
5pm for 5.30 Removing the Boundaries
Seminar, St Ives Hotel, Battery Point. Robert C. Allen, University
of South Carolina "De-Gothamizing Film History; or, Why My
Grandfather Never Went to the Movies."
If you have any questions please contact
Anna Johnston (6226
2367).
COLONIALISM AND ITS AFTERMATH
An Interdisciplinary Research Cluster
University of Tasmania
History from Things
Hosted
by the School of Visual & Performing Arts, University of
Tasmania
in association with the Queen
Victoria Museum and Art Gallery
The Academy of the Arts,
Inveresk
Friday 15 November 2002
RSVP by Friday 8 November 2002
to
Dr Deborah Malor
Deborah.Malor@utas.edu.au
Theory Program/Honours & Postgraduate Coordinator
School of Visual & Performing Arts
PH: 03 6324 4429 \ FAX 03 6324 4401
DRAFT PROGRAM
9.45
Coffee in the Board Room, Academy of the Arts, Inveresk
10.00
Street Gallery - Academy Gallery: Opening of ARTeFACT an exhibition
on the interpretation in art of museum-based objects, by SVPA recent
graduates and current postgraduates Ali Aedy, Jo Anglesey, Anthony
White, Claudette Collingwood Huw, and Kathryn Whatley
10.30
Meaning from things: three papers. Lecture Room IA 181, Academy
of the Arts
Hamish Maxwell-Stewart (History,
UTas)
Anne Morgan (English, UTas)
Jo Richardson (English, UTas)
12.30
Lunch at own cost: the Power House (S.A. Bistro at the Academy)
and Esk Café at the QVMAG will be open. Both serve coffee
and cake, a variety of bistro foods and snacks, as well as wines
and beer.
1.30
Tours of QVMAG Blacksmiths' shop; curator presentations on research,
interpretation and display of selected objects from the Museum's
collections. QVMAG
3.00 - 3.30
Concluding discussion with museum staff on 'history from things'
- responses and alternative interpretations of objects. QVMAG Meeting
Room.
For further information contact Deborah
Malor.
