Narryna’s Winter 2021 program, Pills, Potions and Pandemics, explores Tasmania’s social history through the ‘kill or cure’ experience of pre-modern healthcare.

Narryna’s 19th century residents – Captain Haig, Elizabeth Haig, their children and convict servants – were subjected to a range of treatments including bloodletting and emetics to 'even out' the balance of the four humours or liquids that were believed to regulate the body and emotions. The humours were blood, yellow bile, phlegm and black bile. They corresponded with four basic personality types: sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic and melancholic. This understanding of the body reflected few advances in medical science since the Greek philosophers of the 4th century BCE.

They were furthermore administered harmful substances such as opiates and mercury. To receive no attention from the surgeon or apothecary was generally more beneficial.

Plagues and pandemics have been with us since ancient times. The word, quarantine, comes from 40 days’ isolation if arriving in Venice on an infected ship. Before the recognition of bacterial infection in the 1870s (and viruses in the 1890s), it was believed that diseases such as typhoid were transmitted by foul smells (miasmas).

Houses such as Narryna, in elevated positions and open to sea breezes, were regarded as healthy. Hence George Washington Walker’s decision to move his family to Narryna in the early 1850s, away from the low-lying areas of central Hobart around the polluted Hobart Town Rivulet.

Join us for this special exhibition with special ‘white gloves’ / blue gloves tours examining rich collections of artefacts from the collections of Narryna and COMA (Collection of Medical Artefacts) Tasmania.

16 – 22 June, Pills, Potions and Pandemics open extended hours (seven days per week 10am – 6pm, open Fridays and Saturdays 10am – 8pm) with festival bar. Check this website regularly for additional tours: https://www.narryna.com.au/exhibitions-and-events/2021/5/29/pills-potions-pandemics

Patrick Hall, If They Should Accidentally Fall

As part of Dark MOFO 2019, Narryna is hosting Patrick Hall’s evocative installation work, If They Should Accidentally Fall. Confessions in the dark. Overseen by their preachers or prophets, congregation of bottled-up people whisper of longing and disappointment and the slow erosion of belief, the passing of time illuminated by the rhythm of a breath.  

FINAL WEEK

Open Tuesday to Saturday 10:00am to 4:30pm

From out of the fiery furnace came the work of Tasmanian industrial and studio potters. In this exhibition, colonial era artisan potters are represented by makers such as Worby, Sherwin, Port Arthur (convict and Price period), Goulburn, Yeates, Huon, Campbell Bros and McHugh. The 1920s-60s studio potters will be represented by Maude Poynter, Violet Mace and Mylie Peppin. This show is a must for those exercising their creativity in clay.

An exhibition of costumes and undergarments showing how fashion has emphasised different aspects of the female form over 140 years.

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Tasmania's wild, rugged coastline has been chartered by navigators such as Abel Tasman (1642), James Cook (1777) and Freycinet (1818). Located in the townhouse of Captain Andrew Haig, this exhibition captures the technical skill and unfolding legacy of these early cartographers.

Elegant lines features a rich collection of 19th century gowns and accessories from Narryna’snationally significant costume collection and a private collection. Dresses worn by prominent Tasmanians such as the artist and writer, Louisa Anne Meredith and Sarah Butler of Narryna’s neighbour, Stowell sit alongside the more austere apparel worn by Sarah Benson Walker, who lived at Narryna from 1852 to 1854. . The Walker family were Quakers and their religious philosophy regarded simplicity as a virtue. Quaker dress combined plain colours with simple lines, beautiful quality fabrics and exquisite stitching. It thus appeals to a contemporary aesthetic.