The first seminar
for 2002 - Language
and Landscape- was held at the Grange in Campbelltown on
Friday 22 February.
The second seminar for 2002 was held at the
Willow Court Precinct, New
Norfolk, on Friday 19 July 2002. Information on the programme
and the site is also available below.
The third seminar
for 2002 - History
from things, was hosted by the School
of Visual & Performing Arts at the University
of Tasmania in association with the Queen
Victoria Museum and Art Gallery.
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
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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).
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HISTORY
FROM THINGS
Friday 15 November 2002
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
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.
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