Spill
Anne Ferran

2002
silver gelatin photogram
45 x 50.5 cm
Gift of Anne Ferran

Description
Silver gelatin photogram of a handkerchief knotted to contain a sixpence piece from the Hyde Park Barracks archaeological collection. Inscribed in ink, verso, lower right: ‘UF 160 Anne Ferran 2002’.

Significance statement  
After convict transportation to NSW ended in 1840, the Hyde Park Barracks were redeveloped as a Female Immigration Depot. Single women seeking new prospects in the colony lived in the dormitories until their services were hired out. From 1862 the Hyde Park Asylum for Infirm and Destitute Women occupied the upper levels of the Barracks providing a refuge for poor, ill and abandoned women.

The objects used by Anne Ferran in the making of the Spill photograms date from this period of female occupation. The objects were recovered from beneath the Barracks upper level floorboards during archaeological excavations in 1980 and 1981. It is thought that some of the artefacts fell between the cracks and were lost, while others were deliberately hidden by women beneath the floorboards for safekeeping. The sixpence knotted in a handkerchief is likely to have been purposely hidden and never retrieved by its owner.

History
The Spill series was made in 2002 while Anne Ferran was the National Museum of Australia’s first artist in residence. The Historic Houses Trust (HHT) acquired five works from this series.

Maker biography
Anne Ferran works primarily in photomedia and across video, installation art and writing. Much of her recent work examines the residues of Australia's colonial past, especially in relation to the lives of women and children. Her interest in highly charged and poignant fragments of people's lives has led her to work with archives, museum collections and historic sites in Sydney, Canberra, Tasmania, New Zealand and the UK. In 2002 she was artist in residence at the National Museum of Australia and she is a recipient of the NSW Women and Arts Fellowship. Ferran is regularly invited to exhibit in curated museum exhibitions and her work is represented in most major public collections in Australia. She is exhibits widely and is currently preparing for a major solo survey exhibition at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in 2007.

Museum number
HHT2003/1-4

Image credit
Jenni Carter

Bibliography  
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Anne Ferran: photograms’ [online], Visual arts/features, Canberra series, June 2002.
Petersen, John, Hyde Park Barracks Museum: guidebook, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, Glebe, 2003