Spring is here

Let me prosecute the case by introducing Exhibit A:

Reinforced by Exhibit B:

With Exhibit C completing the case:

Arts West is open for learning

Well, that was amazingly quick! From nothing to a shell of a building, to being open in what seems just a matter of weeks. The Arts West Redevelopment is the Faculty of Arts’ most significant infrastructure project in recent years. It has created new and dynamic teaching and learning spaces for students and staff.

 

Arts West is the new home of the Bachelor of Arts, giving our undergraduates access to world-class spaces, and equipping our academic staff with a new purpose-built teaching and research environment. The building combines the existing West Wing (former 1990s building) and a new North Wing containing state-of-the-art learning spaces. The North and West Wing are linked by the Atrium, an expansive, light-filled space with a suspended central staircase giving access to the upper levels and the basement Lecture Theatre.

 

The building has direct walkway connections to the Baillieu Library, which is central to teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences. The project commenced in December 2014 and was completed in July 2016, ready for teaching in Semester 2, in August 2016.

 

In the metal fins on the Arts West facade you will find the impressions of five selected artworks and artefacts fundamental to knowledge. These images represent an array of cultures, eras and viewpoints, and illustrate the relationship between the Faculty of Arts and the intellectual, cultural and historical traditions that underpin our research and teaching. Each artwork and artefact has been selected for its significance to the history of the Faculty, for its disciplinary breadth and for its ability to aesthetically adapt to the architectural concept. The final design is a balance of images and ambiguous shapes. By spacing the images out across the façade, the distinction between figure and abstraction, between object image and background is blurred.

 The final images are abstract, encouraging exploration and interpretation – like the process of enquiry and revelation which underpins learning and discovery.

The Eclectic Grainger Museum

So I finally got around to visiting the Grainger Museum – its been on my to do list for about two years now, so I thought I should pay a visit in my last semester of university before time runs out…

Born George Percy Grainger in Brighton, Victoria, on 8 July 1882, he made his concert debut in 1894 at age 12, departing for Europe soon after to study piano and composition at the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt. He moved to London in 1901 where he began performing at major concert venues and festivals, as well as writing the first of his own very popular compositions. Grainger’s fame continued to grow with his move to America in 1914 where he toured extensively and performed at the White House through three Presidencies. Percy Grainger was a megastar of the European, North American and Australian stage, commanding huge fees and attracting sell-out audiences for his concert piano performances.
While Grainger’s ambitions to be Australia’s first world-renowned composer made it necessary for him to live away from the country that inspired his creativity, he was adamant that a museum exploring his life and its myriad creative influences be built in Melbourne, the city of his birth. The establishment of the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne is testament to that determination. Grainger began planning the Museum after his mother’s death in 1922 and it was officially opened in December 1938. The building was designed by the University’s architect, John Gawler of the firm Gawler and Drummond, in close consultation with Grainger. The Museum’s historical and architectural significance is recognised by the building’s inclusion on the Register of the National Estate and the Victorian Heritage Register, and its classification by the National Trust of Australia (Victoria).

Percy Grainger died in White Plains, New York in 1961. His legacy as a performer, composer, experimental music maker and folk song arranger places him squarely in the firmament of Australia’s musical greats.

The Grainger Museum is the only purpose-built autobiographical museum in Australia. Its fascinating collection contains not only objects directly related to Percy Grainger’s compositional career, such as scores and manuscripts, but also more than 50,000 items, including diaries, ethnographic objects, furniture, decorative arts, photographs, artworks, clothing and correspondence with famous and not-so-famous contemporaries.
Of significant note is the collection of Norman Lindsay prints and etchings such as The Little Mermaid, Capriccio and The Graces. Lindsay’s etchings are unique in the history of Australian art, the result of a partnership with his wife, Rose Soady, who was a master printmaker. Their collaboration (from 1918 to 1938) resulted in 200 published works.
The museum displayed thousands of items from Graingers life, and being from the botany faculty, one piece of memorabillia I found especially interesting was a signed print of Baron Ferd. von Mueller which read ” To the rising young musician Percy Grainger with best wishes for a brilliant career from Baron F von Mueller, 14/5/95.
And finally, an exquisite tiny painting by Alfred William Eustace, known for his depictions of agricultural scenes that he painted on Red Box and White Box gum leaves. Extraordinary.

Graduate Seminar

My last subject for my Masters starts this week – the Graduate Seminar of Environmental Science. It sort of brings together all the skills that we have hopefully learnt to date, as each week a student leads the class in analysing a topic concerning environmental science. This brings together the critical analysis of a subject, the in depth thinking, a lot of modelling and statistics and numbers, being able to structure an argument, backing it up with previous work, and then expanding on the ideas introduced. Many of the subjects I have taken have introduced small nuggets of wisdom to help wade through the often choppy waters of science, especially when dealing with the environment. So it should be rather fun, as we expand our knowledge and test our pre conceived biases. As usual, we get to choose our own topics, so I’m thinking of a tree related piece, maybe something that covers some research derived from work to support the proposal of the Great Forest National Park…..