Episodes

• The Hair-Raising Passions of Percy Grainger

  It’s easy to speak of those we remember. But what about those we’ve forgotten? A hank of human hair transports us back to Brighton in 1882 when a musical ingenue by the name of Percy Grainger was born. His fame grew at an exceptional speed… But then disappeared just as quickly. This week on Uncurated, Nell Geraets and Mengjie Cai replace a missing note in Australia’s music scene, exploring the passions and perversions behind an enigma of a man.

• The Women that Men Painted

  Art is made to be looked at, to be objectified. But people are not. So what could this mean for those painted onto canvasses that are then flaunted around museums across the world? This week on Uncurated, Yimin Qiang and Angus Thomson venture into Melbourne University’s Arts West to look at 100 women’s faces, all of which were painted by men. Who are these women? And where are all the female artists?

• The Antidote that Killed

  One of the first things that tourists visiting Australia hear is that there’s a lot that could kill you. Sharks, snakes, crocodiles, jellyfish — whether you’re on land or in water, nowhere seems safe. So imagine what it was like back when British settlers were colonising this strange new land. This week on Uncurated, Thomas Phillips and Xiao Zhu begin with an intricate little medical box that packs a hell of a punch. With limited knowledge and primitive equipment, sometimes the methods used to heal were even more dangerous than the creatures around them.

• Sick of Ned Kelly

  We all know Ned Kelly. In fact, we’re pretty tired of hearing about him. Australian history is filled to the brim with these sorts of stories — white-washed and not even that old. So where are the parts of Australian history that haven’t been told? Where are the stories told by those and about those that aren’t white, British men? In this episode of Uncurated, Rebecca Pridham and Maya Pilbrow look at six small photographs depicting the aftermath of the Glenrowan siege, only to discover Ned’s indigenous counterpart and a side of Australian history that stretches back far beyond any settler.

• The House that Annear Built

  It all began with a letter. A colourfully illustrated poem about a Gothic house built for a couple who donated a huge museum collection to the University of Melbourne. This missive is hidden among the 700 plus items collected by Russell and Mab Grimwade. It tells a more personal story than the other objects they gathered, which construct a colonial version of Australian history. In this episode of Uncurated, Pema Monaghan, Josie Hess and Claudia Su unravel what that poem tells us about a man whose collection both defined and reflected the way Australian history has been told.

• The Plant with Many Names

  Four hundred and three specimens of a single vibrant plant are included among the flora at Melbourne University’s Herbarium. It’s most commonly known today as the Emu Bush or eremophila — a native Australian medicinal plant with the ability to cure numerous diseases, but not everyone knows it by this name. The issues raised by this single plant represent the stark cultural divide between Australia’s indigenous communities and the British settlers, illuminating patterns of marginalisation that persist to this day. In this episode of Uncurated, Mustafa Nuristani, Xinyue Huang and Xiaowei Chang examine the many names of a plant that speaks volumes about Australia’s past and present.

• Tracking Captain Cook’s Tapa Book

  A little book modestly bound, fragrant, and full of cloth that lives in the University of Melbourne’s Rare Books Collection started as an 18th-century Western curio collected by Captain Cook on his journey to the South Pacific. But the swatches of cloth tell their own tales, of the first trades – sometimes coerced – between cultures, of an ancient Pacific art form practiced only by women. Clancy Balen and Qiushi Wang report.

• Introducing Uncurated, a podcast delving deep into hidden histories

  Hair from a corpse, killer antidotes and photos of the dead; these are some of the objects held in the University of Melbourne’s 12 museums. In our new podcast Uncurated, we’re breaking down the sandstone to unpack Australia’s hidden histories, exploring colonisation, fame, fortune, sex and death.