brickendon dairy
2010 Silver PICA - Design on material other than paper
2010 Silver PICA - Signage
The Archer Family has owned and run Brickendon for almost 185 years, spanning seven generations. William Archer arrived from England in 1824 and joined his brother at Woolmers until moving to land on the opposite side of the Macquarie River. He began building the farm complex in 1826 with Ticket of Leave tradesmen and assigned convict labour.
As a relatively recent addition, the delapidated diary, built in the 1950’s, was not considered a significant historic element of the site, therefore it was ideal for the new interpretation installation. We were commissioned to convert the building to interpret the story of the assignment of convicts at Brickendon. Brickendon, along with Woolmers are listed as World Heritage sites as ‘representative of the use of penal transportation to expand Britain’s geopolitical spheres of influence, and to rehabilitate criminals and integrate them into a distant penal colony’ and as being ‘associated with global developments in the punishment of crime in the 19th Century’.
The project consisted of both the renovation of the dairy into a publicly accessible building, and the design of interpretive elements:
• 8 x 2400 x 600mm panels
• 1 x 1900 x 600 panel overlaid with a 1500 x 800 perspex panel
• 1 x 1220 x 1520 perspex panel
all interpreting the story of convict assignment covering crime and tranport, assignment, trades, working and daily life, listings of assigned convicts and the end of the assignment system to the beginning of the probation system; and
• 2 x interpretive window graphics interpreting the position of formerly demolished convict barracks.
A second stage includes an interactive touch screen focusing on William Archer’s diary with audio transcripts and an oversized ‘jigsaw’ interactive puzzle reinforcing the complex of agrarian buildings on the site.