From heartbeats to brainwaves, economic cycles to cosmic orbits, oscillations can be found everywhere. These seven stories bring Dakota Feirer, Alexandra Spence, Jinghua Qian, John Jacobs and Jane Curtis, Miyuki Jokiranta, Omar Musa and Sally Olds into the Powerhouse’s collection of over 500,000 objects to explore the stories behind them.

Ranging from the poetic to the musical, the journalistic to the personal, these audio works offer stories, interpretations and investigations, bringing new light and sound to the museum’s collection.

Presented by Jon Tjhia and sound design by Erin Hyde (Sig Nu Gris).

Subscribe via the Powerhouse channel on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Image Zan Wimberley, still from the beginning, the middle, the end, 2021, video, single channel, 15 mins and 1 second.

Object number: 97/92/14-5 

What does it cost to be visible? Chinese and trans people shift in and out of focus in Australia’s historical records – appearing and disappearing, code-switching, oscillating. Through the lens of turn-of-the-century portrait photography, Jinghua Qian looks at the privilege and burden of representation and the luminous power of inscrutability. 

The piece was recorded and produced in Melbourne on the land of the Wurundjeri and Bunurong People of the Kulin Nations, with additional recordings from Gadigal land, Lenape homelands (New York City) and Tio'tia:ke (Montreal). 
 
Jinghua Qian is a writer interested in race, resistance, art, desire, queerness and the Chinese diaspora. Eir work has appeared in Overland, Peril, The Guardian, The Saturday Paper and on television in ABC’s China Tonight. Ey lives in Melbourne’s west on the land of the Kulin Nations. 
 
Thanks to Jon Tjhia, Atong Atem, Oliver Reeson, Kate Bagnall, Tim Sherratt, the Powerhouse team, and my perilous, unparalleled chorus: Alice Tang, Eric Jiang, Jackie Tang, Jessica Jiamei Levine, Jon Tjhia, Joyce Cheng, Lee Lai, Lian Low, Lilian Shen, Margaret Mayhew, Raina Peterson and Vicky Yuan. 

Oscillations is presented by Jon Tjhia and sound design is by Erin Hyde (Sig Nu Gris). 

Interested in learning more? Check out the Oscillations collection set. 

Object number: 2007/56/104

In Mutual Obligation Sally Olds looks into unemployment activism in 1970s Australia, when Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister and Milton Friedman toured the continent. The piece tracks the links between unemployed worker unions, the origin of the ‘dole bludger’, and the rise of the unemployment policies we live under and struggle against today. 

Sally Olds is a writer whose work has been published by Sydney Review of Books, un Magazine, the Institute of Modern Art, and AQNB, among other publications. In September 2022 she released her first book, People who Lunch: Essays on Work, Leisure, and Loose Living (Upswell). Keep up with Sally via her website, Twitter and Instagram. 

This work was made on the unceded land of the Wurundjeri and Bunurong Peoples of the Kulin Nation. Sally pays her respects to their Elders past and present. 

With thanks to Jon Tjhia for his support with editing, recording, and producing this work, Ayeesha Ash and Cara Stewart for their curatorial support, Alex Griffin for information about Australia’s economic history, and Owen Bennett for his interview. Thank you to all who shared stories about their experiences of Centrelink. 

Oscillations is presented by Jon Tjhia and sound design is by Erin Hyde (Sig Nu Gris). 

Interested in learning more? Check out the Oscillations collection set.