Home: a suburban obsession inspires

Thirty-three public library staff attended the Realising our potential – 2019 Rural Libraries Queensland and small libraries workshop at State Library of Queensland. Many attendees took the opportunity to visit the Home: a suburban obsession while they were here.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit online or onsite, Home: a suburban obsession is about the allure of home and the stories found within, inspired by one of the largest digitised photographic collections of Queensland houses. It explores the social and emotional foundations of our houses through ephemera and artistic responses capturing the places we call home.

During the 1960s and 70s, Frank and Eunice Corley roamed the suburbs photographing houses in South-East Queensland. Fifty years on, the legacy of their efforts is an extensive collection of images that indiscriminately capture Queensland housing stock – from the architectural to the ramshackle.

One workshop attendee has decided to lay the foundation for her own Homes exhibition in Hughenden. Read on to hear from Mim Crase:

Visiting State Library of Queensland’s exhibition Home: a suburban obsession inspired me to dive headlong into writing a Project Scope document to run the same sort of program here in Hughenden.

Last year the Grand Hotel burnt down, the town's population is dwindling, and events keep bringing changes into the town for good or for ill. Documenting this town in 2019, every house front, business front and empty lot tells a story and gives a starting point, a 'now' from which all future changes can be pinpointed. If we are successful in securing funding, we aim to take the photographs with enough time to develop a presentation at the Flinders Shire's Australia Day event in 2020.

About the author
Mim Crase has worked in Flinders Shire Public Library since July 2017.