The conservation team at the State Library of Western Australia have been working on the preparation and installation of items for Cicada, an exhibition featuring the new children’s book from multi-award winner Shaun Tan.
The team has also been involved in the de-installation of Steve Goes To Carnival, an exhibition based on the children’s book by Robyn Wells and Joshua Button, featuring a jazz-loving gorilla who travels to the Carnival in Rio in search of his zookeeper friend.
December was finished off in good style for Ian MacLeod after a month of working with Emily Constantine and her crew at the RAAF Museum in Point Cook, Victoria on a WWII Spitfire that had been recovered from a French estuary nearly eight years ago. Images are confidential copy owing to security and family issues but it was often messy as they worked to clean out the mixture of mud and bio-deteriorated oil and fuel from the hard-to-get-to spaces. With a V12 Merlin Engine made by Rolls Royce and only weighing around 1600 kg, the plane was raw power and of course helped to win the Battle of Britain.
In January, Ian was working at the Perth Observatory doing a conservation assessment for the Friends of the Perth Observatory Group. By mid-February, the report will be wending its way to the National Library of Australia, who funded the grant.
In September 2018, Ian ran a metals intensive course for University of Melbourne students undertaking the Master of Cultural Materials Conservation. The students’ essays were stunning and brilliant so it augers well for the future of metals conservation in Australia.
