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< Previous Uncle Wes Marne welcomes visitors to Elizabeth Farm for NAIDOC Week. Shown with Healing land, remembering Country by Tony Albert, 2020. Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous support from the Australia Council for the Arts and Create NSW, and generous assistance from the Medich Foundation, and acquired by Sydney Living Museums courtesy of Tony Albert and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney. Handwoven baskets by: Bula’bula Arts – Evonne Munuyngu; Gapuwiyak Culture and Arts – Dolly Dhimburra Bidingal, Joyce Milpuna Bidingal, Mary Dhapalany, Mavis Marrkula Djuliping, Linda Gagati, Caroline Gulmindilly, Kathy Guyula, Helen Djaypila Guyula, Meredith Marika; Numbulwar Numburindi Arts – Nicola Wilfred; Tjanpi Desert Weavers – Munatji Brumby, Maureen Cullinan, Niningka Lewis, Puna Yanima. Photo © Joshua Morris for Sydney Living Museums Creating spaces for our stories Hayden Walsh, Indigenous Programs Producer Sydney Living Museums continues to deepen our vital connections with community, with exciting events at our properties and compelling personal profiles on our website. NAIDOC Week 2020 In 2020, SLM was proud to present our NAIDOC Week community event – usually held in July – on 14 November at Elizabeth Farm. This was one of our first major public events to be held since the closure of our museums and cancellation of programs due to COVID-19, and was very much looked forward to by visitors and SLM staff alike. We also launched a newly acquired artwork by Sydney-based Kuku Yalanji artist Tony Albert, Healing land, remembering Country (originally featured at the Biennale of Sydney 2020, as reported in the summer 2020 issue of Unlocked). The day began with a welcome to Country and a smoking ceremony by Uncle Wes Marne, who also welcomed Healing land, remembering Country to Elizabeth Farm. Visitors were then invited to engage with and appreciate this beautiful and one-of-a-kind artwork through a ‘memory exchange’ activity that was popular among all age groups – this involved writing messages on paper embedded with local plant seeds that will eventually degrade into the soil to regenerate. 10AUTUMN 2021In the grounds of the house, visitors participated in a traditional weaving activity, learning techniques that they could practise later at home. Many people also took the time to explore the house and learn more about the property itself. Healing land, remembering Country is currently on display at Elizabeth Farm. For opening hours, visit slm.is/elizabethfarm Community profiles Also in November, SLM launched the first in an ongoing series of community profiles on our website. These in-depth profiles allow us to highlight our connections and work with community Elders and leaders, and capture their unique stories and perspectives to share with our audiences. The first person profiled was Uncle Fred, well known to many of our visitors from the wonderful cooking demonstrations run by Fred’s Bush Tucker at events such as the Eel Festival. In this three-part video, Uncle Fred imparts a wealth of knowledge and insight gathered from decades of learning from his Elders and on Country. The first video explores different bush foods and plants that can be found in many parts of Australia, and how best to use them, including foods you can easily make at home. In the second video, Uncle Fred demonstrates how to prepare and cook fish with traditional paperbark and lemon myrtle leaves. In the third, powerful video, he discusses his personal journey, opening up about his upbringing and family life, and how he has been able to connect to culture and community. He unpacks many difficult but important topics, and discusses how he was able to navigate his way through them. He also shares his thoughts on how people can overcome their fears when starting a new journey or creative endeavour, as well as the importance of passing on your knowledge to the generations to come. Keep an eye out for future profiles on our website. To watch, visit slm.is/uncle-fred Eel Festival Coming up on Sunday 7 March is the annual Eel Festival at Elizabeth Farm, on Darug Country. One of our most popular events, the festival has become well known in the Parramatta community and further afield as an immersive and engaging experience. At Elizabeth Farm, the oldest colonial homestead still standing in Australia, visitors can learn about and celebrate Indigenous culture, particularly that of the Burramuttagal and Darug people. First launched in 2016, the festival continues to stimulate fascinating and important conversations and create enduring connections. A smoking ceremony and welcome to Country will begin the day, followed by poetry, dance and songs by performance artist Gumaroy Newman and his team. Uncle Wes will be at the yarning circle, telling stories and sharing his knowledge and wisdom, still going strong as he approaches his 99th birthday. Visitors can taste Indigenous foods provided by Kallico Catering, participate in weaving and art activities, check out the house and gardens, and join in a Darug language workshop. Please come and learn about, celebrate and engage with the oldest living culture on Earth, at Australia’s oldest homestead. For more information, go to slm.is/eelfestival Above, left to right Uncle Fred at the Eel Festival. Photo © James Horan for Sydney Living Museums; Eel Festival. Photo © Talei Elu for Sydney Living Museums 11CREATING SPACES FOR OUR STORIES( Re ) making a home Anna Cossu, Curator Sydney Living Museums has acquired an evocative collection of household items belonging to the last tenants of Susannah Place.In 1990, the last remaining tenants of Susannah Place in The Rocks, Ellen and Dennis Marshall, moved out, taking with them household contents accumulated over the 28 years they called 62 Gloucester Street home. In 2019, following Ellen’s death two years earlier, her daughter contacted SLM and asked whether we would like to take any of the things that had been at number 62. The self-confessed ‘bowerbirds’ rarely threw anything away, and a treasure-trove of material relating to every room in the house was identified, representing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for SLM to re-create a tenant’s home using a comprehensive collection of original material. ‘I came here as a young woman and left as an old one’ 1 Ellen and Dennis, with Ellen’s young daughter, Jenni, moved from Victoria to Sydney in 1956. They briefly lived in the inner west suburb of Balmain before renting a room at 109 Gloucester Street, The Rocks, and later the top two rooms in a terrace across the road. In 1962, they were offered a six-month lease at 62 Gloucester Street, one in the row of four terrace houses known as Susannah Place. Ellen recalled that one of her happiest memories was when the Maritime Services Board (the then government landlord) gave her the keys to the house: the family’s days of sharing kitchen and washing facilities were over. The Marshalls moved into Susannah Place at a time when the state government was planning the redevelopment of the entire Rocks area. Despite the short-term lease, Ellen set about making the house her own, with the enthusiasm familiar to generations of new homemakers. A fresh lick of paint did away with the dull government-issue ‘Maritime brown’ paint and layers of wallpaper, and the bare floorboards were covered in brightly patterned linoleums. South view of the verandah kitchen at 62 Gloucester Street, Susannah Place. Photo © Nicholas Watt for Sydney Living Museums ‘Everyone called the paint “Maritime brown” – everything was brown. I painted around the fireplace red because it was just so drab. It was all the go to have one wall a different colour, a feature wall.’ North view of the verandah kitchen. Photo © Nicholas Watt for Sydney Living Museums Right and below Ellen Marshall outside the front door of number 62, photographer unknown, c1991. Sydney Living Museums; Ellen Marshall and her daughter, Jenni, photographer unknown, c1960s. Courtesy estate of Ellen Marshall 13(RE)MAKING A HOMEAs historian Graeme Davison notes, ‘memory invests rooms, walls, passages and furniture with meanings inaccessible to the casual observer’. 2 Fortunately, oral history interviews conducted with Ellen and Jenni in the early 1990s captured the domestic arrangements of the Marshall home. The house they moved into had changed very little since it was built in 1844. There was no running hot water in the kitchen; the rudimentary bathroom (located in the basement) consisted of a tin bath that had to be filled with buckets of hot water carried from the laundry copper; and although electric lights had been installed in the house in the early 1940s, they had yet to reach the outside toilet. By the time the Marshalls left in 1990, Dennis had rewired the entire house, installed additional lights and much-needed power points, replaced the tin bath with a shower, and fitted out the narrow verandah kitchen (painted bright yellow by Ellen and Jenni) with a bench, shelves and cupboards. These alterations and improvements, reflecting the personal taste, income and needs of the Marshall family, can still be seen in the house today. ‘Our spare money went on railway trips, not flash furnishings’ In the early years of the Marshalls’ life at Susannah Place, Dennis worked for the Postmaster-General’s Department as an electrician and Ellen took in sewing from clothing factories. The couple were train Above, left to right A kitchen canister from the Marshall home. Photo © Joshua Morris for Sydney Living Museums. Gift of Jenni Whitford and family; The middle room of the Marshall home. Photo © Nicholas Watt for Sydney Living Museums A 1940s wardrobe fitted out with timber shelves and painted bright red served as a kitchen cupboard ... 14AUTUMN 2021enthusiasts and keen bushwalkers, and spent their modest income on these pursuits. They saved money by furnishing their home with second-hand furniture – repurposing, repainting and re-covering pieces to give them a new lease of life. A 1940s wardrobe fitted out with timber shelves and painted bright red served as a kitchen cupboard (shown at left), while (much to Ellen’s displeasure) a beautiful old chiffonier that had belonged to a former neighbour was converted into a workbench by Dennis. When it came time to leave Susannah Place, these pieces and many more were taken to their new home in the south-western suburb of Campbelltown, where they remained in use until Ellen passed away in 2017 (Dennis had died in 2015). The collection consists of typical household items: bookcases, chairs, crockery, and a plethora of knick-knacks that decorated mantelpieces and shelves throughout the house. A wealth of private documents, years of receipts, books and magazines also reveal the family’s interests and hobbies and how they spent their leisure time. The collection speaks to the day-to-day lives of this working- class family, and some pieces, such as Ellen’s sewing machine and Dennis’s workbench, also connect us to a period of history that saw significant changes in the Rocks neighbourhood and the loss of its working-class community. Ellen’s large industrial sewing machine sat prominently in the middle room, positioned to make the most of the available light. For many years, it was an important Above, left to right Jenni Whitford wearing one of the many dresses her mum made for her, Ellen Marshall, c1960s; Ellen Marshall’s dressmaker’s mannequin. Photo © Jamie North for Sydney Living Museums. Gift of Jenni Whitford and family 15(RE)MAKING A HOMEsource of income for Ellen, allowing her to work from home while her daughter was young: ‘I would take her to school, then buzz off to [the factory in] Oxford Street and get my sewing, come home and rev this thing up, and sew and then pick her up at three o’clock’. ‘I can’t remember how many panes of glass we’ve replaced’ Ellen and Dennis also played an important role in caring for Susannah Place during the push to redevelop and modernise the Rocks area. By the mid-1970s the couple were the sole tenants of Susannah Place; faced with little government maintenance of the property, they acted as the unofficial caretakers of the three vacant houses. For over a decade, Ellen sewed curtains for the empty houses to give them a lived-in look to deter vandalism. Meanwhile, Dennis used his skills and tools to make vital repairs to the vacant houses, rigged up a timer system for the lights to come on automatically every night in the neighbouring house, repaired gutters and kept termites in check. After moving to Campbelltown, Ellen was a great supporter of Susannah Place when it opened as a museum in 1993, and visited her old home regularly with her daughter, grandchildren and, later, great-grandchildren. For more than a year, Jenni worked with SLM staff to sift through the lives of her mother and stepfather. This complex, exhausting and at times emotional process triggered many memories and stories as long-forgotten objects were rediscovered. Thanks to Jenni’s donation, visitors will be able to experience the house as it was lived in by the Marshall family. As we were finalising this issue of Unlocked for print, we received the sad news that Jenni Whitford had passed away. We wish to acknowledge Jenni for her generous donation and express our deepest sympathy to her family. 1 All quotes from Ellen Marshall from oral history interview with Ellen Marshall and her daughter, Jenni Ford (nee Whitford), conducted by James Broadbent, 27 January 1993, Sydney Living Museums. 2 Graeme Davison and Chris McConville, A heritage handbook, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1990, p179. LEARN MORE Susannah Place is currently closed to visitors. Discover more of the Marshall collection at slm.is/susannahplace From top A plate from Ellen Marshall’s good crockery set; Ellen Marshall’s homemade pincushion; Mushroom magnets from the Marshall home. Photos © Joshua Morris for Sydney Living Museums. Gifts of Jenni Whitford and family The middle room of the Marshall home, with Ellen Marshall’s electric Singer sewing machine. Photo © Nicholas Watt for Sydney Living Museums A special collection The Susannah Place collection gives voice to and connects us with the generations of people who lived in and shaped the four working-class houses. It enables the creation of immersive visitor experiences that reflect the daily lives of these past residents and the social, economic and political forces that influenced them. The collection also supports and extends access to and understanding of this place and its stories via digital platforms. Susannah Place is listed on the NSW Heritage Register as an item of state significance for its historic, aesthetic, scientific and social values. The listing declares that the ‘site and buildings are significant for their contribution to the character and qualities of the precinct’ and that ‘Susannah Place is a rare example of a simple working class 1840s terrace in The Rocks and wider area, which has undergone few alterations despite major changes of ownership and social infrastructure since its construction’. The Marshall collection allows SLM to deepen the interpretation of this terrace through a focus on the 1970s, a pivotal time in the history of Sydney. 16AUTUMN 2021The first resident artist at The Mint has displayed her unique aesthetic sensibilities in a range of creative responses at our properties. Over the past year, Dr Lisa Cooper, an artist and florist with a Doctorate in Philosophy in Fine Art from the University of NSW’s College of Fine Arts, has been visiting, researching and immersing herself in Sydney Living Museums’ properties, their collections and stories. Working almost exclusively with flowers and plants, she’s made a significant impact in the first year of a three-year ambassadorship. Dynamics of scale Q: How has relocating your studio to The Mint affected your practice? A: I moved from a cavernous industrial space in Redfern to a smaller ‘scholastic’ space here in the (old) Rum Hospital (The Mint). The changed scale of my new space, along with myriad restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, has engendered a renewed focus to my practice this year. In the years prior, my work had been dominated by the production of large-scale works, changing the emphasis of my practice, which has always been on the elemental – the flowers [The Flowers is also the title of Dr Cooper’s book]. In my new studio, I’ve stood at my bench and worked dedicatedly and with hyper attention on compositions in silver and black bowls – I feel like I’m sharpening my knife. There’s a dynamic of scale at play between ‘man’ and flower, and when the work ‘blows out’ too often the way it had over the past few years this dynamic is compromised. I’ve loved perfecting my work with dedicated practice with a quantity of flowers my hands can hold. There’s something to be said for working in this studio rather than a vast industrial space. I’m making myself more available. I meet so many people through Dr Lisa Cooper: a creative partnership Joanna Nicholas, Curator Left and above Dr Lisa Cooper in the dairy at Vaucluse House; Dr Lisa Cooper installing CHURCH FLOWERS in the colonial kitchen at Vaucluse House. Photos © Toby Burrows for Sydney Living Museums 19DR LISA COOPER: A CREATIVE PARTNERSHIPNext >