Transcript: International Museum Day - Museum of the Goldfields

Hello, this is the Edwardian parlour in the Museum of Goldfields in Kalgoorlie and I’ve chosen this absolutely fabulous china or ceramic cheese plate and cover as one of my favourite objects here.

It’s got cherry blossom pattern on it which tells me that it’s reflecting the Chinese-Japanese influence that came into all aspects of art and decorating at the end of the 19th century to early 20th centuries.

But the best thing about it is its size.

When we look at how we get cheese today in the supermarkets, in measly little packets!

Can you imagine something that would fit on this size plate?

My goodness, there are a lot of appetites that would have been fed by that chunk of cheese!

Why is it my favourite object?

It tells me about the changes that we’ve had in how food is presented on a table and how we store and package food in the space of say, 100-120 years.

It’s how we decorate things.

This has triangular plates and its got a ribbed finish almost as if it’s had a pastry press.

There is a wavy ribbed finish on the top cover with the cherry blossoms and some butterflies painted on it.

And it’s got a sort of twig shaped handle on the top.

It has also got two little holes for breathing.

You don’t get this in your pre-packaged stuff from Woolies these days.

And I really enjoy being able to tell stories about objects that give us a story about how something in our life has changed over a period of time and things like how we present food, how we package food has changed so dramatically probably even in the last 20-30 years.

And this is a great example in our parlour here.