Fashion Detective - National Gallery of Victoria

The suitcase is out again as I pack for Melbourne.  I'm heading down for the opening of Fashion Detective an exhibition in which I was delighted to take part.  Fashion Detective, at the National Gallery of Victoria, examines the detective work required to establish the provenance of an item.  Curators use such scientific methods as x-ray imaging, carbon dating and chemical testing to determine things like age and composition.  In a twist, the Gallery also invited 4 crimewriters to come up with a fabricated history for an object using only their imaginations.  It was my previlege to be one of those writers.  My particular item was a sample of wallpaper, by William Morris, in arsenic green (very fashionable in the 1800s)! 

As part of the exhibition I'll be joining with my Sisters in Crime, Leigh Redhead and P.D. Martin to run a free workshop,  entitled "Using Material Evidence", at the NGV (on Sunday the 11th, between 2pm and 4pm) where we will help visitors produce their own short fictions based on items from the exhibition.  Now, I know Sunday is Mother's Day, but if your mother is the least bit "criminally inclined" this may be the perfect afternoon's entertainment.