I’m Susannah Bourke, a student at RMIT interested in the ever changing politics of metadata and information access.
During my undergraduate studies in Design and Visual Art I consulted archives and worked in the NGA Research Library. My goal was to create objects which brought overlooked moments of history into the present. I am moving into Information Management because I want to participate in the work of improving problems around access, preservation and use.
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Object Therapy, 2016
Photograph by Lee Grant
A project about repair.
Object therapy invited people to donate their broken objects to be creatively repaired by artists and designers from around the world.
I submitted a Mistral Gyro Aire fan I’d found in my backyard when I realized the fan has actually been recalled in the early 90s. They caused numerous house fires across Australia. The company had won design awards in the 60s and hid evidence of the problems rather than recalling the fans. Their factory in Singapore burned down.
I visited the State Library of Victoria (from Canberra) and the Public Records Office of Victoria, to piece together the story behind it.
I found press clippings and other ephemera through Trove at the NLA.
I rebuilt the fan, with help from my bike mechanic friend, and turned it into a hand cranked fan/shredder. It destroys the evidence of the past as you use it.
I was lucky enough to get to show this work in exhibitions at;
The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney
The Australian Design Centre
Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
and various regional galleries around Australia.
Susannah Bourke 