Through the act of collection and curation Edie Kurzer shares her obtuse relationship with the moving image, hiding new and unexpected references in each nook of the wall of curiosities she is filling at the renewed ACMI.
Transcript
Edie Kurzer: I think it is that bringing together of disparate objects that somebody is obsessed by, you know, in the history of cabinets of curiosity or wunderkammers ... That's where the fascination is. It takes the objects beyond just being the object themselves.
My name's Edie Kurzer; I'm a costume designer and I'm also the curator of the ACMI cabinet of curiosities. As a costume designer, things I'm interested in collecting are more working class, real, worn objects. Each of the cabinets will have a little story to tell, brought together by the common denominator of the moving image.
Been on the Pez hunt for a while. The variety of Pez figures represent so many different TV shows and TV characters and film and animation characters. It's that collective memory that's really interesting; so I was very excited when when I found these.
Yeah Steve [presses on Steve Irwin doll, which makes a sound]. I like playing with scale. I like the way Bindi is so much bigger than Steve, and then I found this charming echidna the other day so he'll be in there somewhere.
I wanted to also reference what happens behind the scenes and how films or TV shows or games are actually made. The art department and various people that build things and make things; doing special effects and making up different colors of blood. Scissors are used by a number of departments. Editors used to use scissors to cut film.
Not going for the obvious for me is important and for it to be unexpected, and I'm hoping that when people have return visits to ACMI that they'll find something new in the cabinet or a new reference that they mightn't have picked up on in the first place. It's a much more obtuse relationship that I think I have with the moving image and how I'm going to represent that.