Opinion
Sydney’s new Powerhouse Museum opens in a fortnight, with displays of cutting-edge food, design and music. Fair enough, but I thought museums were supposed to be a snapshot of the past.
Herewith, my pitch for a Museum of Forgotten Places. Come, let me be your guide.
First, we enter a barber shop, a replica of the establishment found in every Australian suburb until about 1983. There are two barbers cutting hair, both chain-smoking as they snip. You can hardly see yourself in the mirror for all the smoke.
The radio is tuned to the races and a wide range of reading material is available, but only if you count 20 flyblown copies of The Australasian Post as a “wide range”. Each issue of The Post is missing the Ettamogah Pub cartoon, these having been removed in order to decorate the walls.
The whole place stinks of flammable hair oil, a substance which will occasionally form a dangerous partnership with the cigarette dangling from the barber’s lips. One drop of ash and it’s a conflagration.
The barber rarely confesses his previous life as a shearer, although you may notice the pot of tar, sitting there on the counter, employed whenever he nicks his customer’s ear.
In the next room, we spot a Holden car, dating from the mid-1960s. There are bench seats front and back – 100 per cent vinyl – and no seatbelts. Four children are on the back bench, standing, untethered, like little missiles waiting to be launched through the front window whenever dad touches the brakes.
The windows are closed, except for the driver’s window, which is open just a crack, through which cigarette smoke bellows as if from Vesuvius. Mum is the navigator, reading directions from a Gregory’s Street Directory, but only to the extent she can see the map through all the smoke.
Given the secondhand smoke, you’ll probably want to move to the next room. In Room Three, you’ll find a replica of a traditional Australian motel room. Once inside, you’ll discover the carpet is covered with suspicious stains, but of a greying hue, so it’s unclear when the murder took place and how many were killed.
The toilet features a sash, rather like those awarded at the Royal Easter Show. Hurrah! On this occasion, they’ve cleaned the toilet! Good on ’em!
There’s also a hatch through which breakfast will be delivered. This will consist of two pieces of rubbery toast destined to be ripped to shreds by the rock-hard pat of butter on offer. The four kids, featured in our earlier display, will jump up and down on the bed until every spring is busted.
Let’s move on to Room Four. Aware that visitors have a taste for gore, as seen in Europe’s proliferating torture museums, we feature a typical 1970s Australian classroom. In a scene reminiscent of Old Sydney Town, students are continuously thrashed by the deputy principal, their indignant screams echoing against the walls.
Also, in a postmodern flourish, all the clocks in this room are designed to go backwards, reflecting the experience of all those from the 1970s who studied geography. And inside every desk, you can find copies of Go-Set or Dolly, a surreptitious peek at which was the only upside of an Australian schooling.
Be sure to time your visit to Room Four for 11am. At this point, every day, staff will serve everyone a small bottle of milk, left in the sun until it is warm and curdled. A replica school dunny is located nearby for when you need to chunder.
Room Five celebrates the world of food: not the fancy stuff featured in the new Powerhouse, but the food of Australia’s recent past. To bring alive the ’50s, ‘60s and ’70s, our curators have created a “smell-scape” in which visitors entering the room will be immediately struck by the stench of overcooked cabbage and boiled-to-death beans.
A BBQ station, located on one side of the room, will see T-bone steaks being incinerated until the meat pleads for mercy. On the other side of the room, small cans of tuna will be ladled into large buckets of wallpaper paste in order to produce “Tuna Mornay”. Do get in quick before it sets.
In Room Six – we’re reaching the climax here – there’s a perfect replica of a traditional Australian pub. Every surface is covered in tiles, with not a scrap of fabric to be seen. There are two beers on offer: New and Old. If you want a red wine, there’s a half-empty bottle in the fridge.
Women are not allowed in here – are you crazy? – and the smell is terrible. At least it gets you limbered up for the smell of the latrine. Try to be in the museum at 6pm to see the traditional hose-out! Edwardian tiling, you’ll discover, was more than an aesthetic choice.
After all that excitement, you’ll be forced to exit via the gift shop. Why not pick up a pair of desert boots, some Bogart jeans and a 10-pack of cigarettes (perfect for the underage smoker)? Or you may prefer a tin of hair oil, a copy of The Australasian Post, and an authentic, blood-stained teacher’s cane?
What a day! What memories! Let’s wait a fortnight and see if the new Powerhouse can offer anything better.
Need more Richard Glover in your life? Read these:
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- Meet Richard’s adorable new dog Frank, aka “No Chewing”
- Am I going too hard on my seniors Opal card? You bet I am