The Noel Shaw Gallery at the Baillieu Library is hosting an exhibition on the 18th and 19th century Grand Tour to France, Italy and Greece, drawing on the library’s collections of artworks and books.
Master of Engineering students and staff in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology have collaborated with the Library to build the Vesuvian Apparatus originally designed by British scientist and diplomat Sir William Hamilton in the early 1770s. Hamilton’s apparatus drew on the latest techniques of London’s theatres and pleasure gardens to create a multimedia depiction of Mount Vesuvius erupting and the lava cascading down the volcano. The Vesuvian apparatus comes to life 250 years later!
The new version has been built in the Creator Space at Melbourne Connect.
The tour by the exhibition curators and students will commence at the entrance to the Baillieu Library and include a tour of the exhibition.
Speaker One: Sally Foster is Curator, Prints & Drawings in Archives and Special Collections at the University of Melbourne. Before joining the University in 2023 she worked at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Canberra, where she was the Senior Curator, Prints and Drawings (2021-23), and Curator, International Prints, Drawings and Illustrated Books (2016-21).
Prior to this Sally held curatorial positions in the departments of Prints, Drawings & Photographs at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), Adelaide, and in International Art at the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane.
Speaker Two: Dr Richard Gillespie is Senior Curator in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Melbourne. He was previously Head of Humanities at Museums Victoria, working on the development and programming of Scienceworks, Immigration Museum, Melbourne Museum and the Royal Exhibition Building.
An historian of science and technology, he has been a principal research fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies.
