A silver gelatin dry plate glass negative in landscape format.

Country Always

Caring for Country

A Corner of the Empire

The Garden Palace

Sepia photograph of the Technological Museum and a cow in the foreground

The Holding Pen

The Agricultural Hall

Sepia photograph of the Technological College and Museum in Broken Hill

Regional Networks

Across New South Wales

A Museum of Doing

Technological Museum

Black and white photograph of man walking through eucalyptus plantation

Expanding Stories

Evolution of the Castle Hill site from botanical research station to Museum Discovery Centre

Colour photograph of red corrugated iron building from a high vantage point

Transforming the Tramsheds

Powerhouse Stage 1 and the Harwood Building

A Symbol in Time

Sydney Observatory

Powerhouse Museum, Stage 2 exterior from high angle, city skyline in background

Ongoing Transformations

Powerhouse Ultimo

Blurred image from film with museum object number

Applied Arts and Sciences

Defining the terms in the 21st century

Indira Elias looking at the camera, wearing a Sun-like earring.

Indira Elias

Generations Fellow

Powerhouse Renewal

Artist Xin Liu floating with arm outstretched against a black background. She wears a full-length grey body suit with long sleeves with bare feet and hands.

Sydney Science Festival

Across Sydney10—17 Aug
Shadows cast by the Powerhouse Parramatta exoskeleton on concrete

Exoskeleton

Powerhouse Parramatta

A woman stands on stage in front of a large audience. She has her left hand raised in the air and a microphone in her right hand. The audience are holding their phones up recording the woman.

Blak Powerhouse

Powerhouse x We Are Warriors

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Stories

Indira Elias

Generations Fellow
Indira Elias looking at the camera, wearing a Sun-like earring.

It feels good to free myself from the expectation of genre and to practice intuition without words.

Australian born, of Lebanese, Filipino, Spanish and Portuguese heritage, Indira embodies a uniquely modern collision of ancient knowings and traditions. She fuses genre and sound in much the same way, drawing inspiration from myriad places with tender care. Cinematic soundscapes, painted in folk-noir, create a haunting and ethereal collection of songs that speak the language of mythology and fables.

The Generations Fellowship connects artists with established industry experts and mentors, to pass on intergenerational knowledge and create pathways in the music industry. Between September 2021 and March 2022, Indira Elias explored a number of musical instruments in the Powerhouse collection.

A guitar shaped instrument with a long wooden neck and oval body covered in leather. A single black string runs along the instrument.
Object No. H9139-1
Gusle from Yugoslavia
A little carved man on a donkey, sitting atop the Yugoslavian Gusle, reminded me that every instrument has a story to tell — about the hands that played it and the hands that made it.
A carved wooden ornament of a man standing on a donkey which is standing on the head of a horned goat head at the end of a wooden stringed instrument.
Object No. H9139-1
Gusle from Yugoslavia (detail)
Between shelves that house medieval armour, Australia’s first 3D printer, and some very old units of measurement, we inspected intricate hurdy-gurdies, carved with the faces of sirens, an Italian dulcimer from the 1700s, painted with views of the seaside, and some beautiful, old guitars.
A decorative wooden stringed instrument.
Object No. H9156
Hurdy Gurdy
Texture and timbre are the things that feel electric to me.
A pale yellow hollow body guitar lies on its side.
Object No. H5315
Arch-top guitar
I was inspired by the opportunity to play beautiful old guitars from the Powerhouse’s collection — a Louis Panormo parlour guitar from 1822, and an archtop guitar made entirely of plastic from the 1950s.
A person sits at a bright red keyboard.
We re-arranged a couple of my songs which are normally played with a pretty big band for this Farfisa.
Intense solitude and self-reflection are the biggest catalysts for my work.
The left end of a bright red keyboard with the word ‘combo’ written above the keyboard and a number of colourful buttons
Object No. 2021/70/5
‘Farfisa Combo Compact’ Organ

Indira Elias

Indira Elias is an artist, musician, composer and producer based on Gadigal and Birrabirragal land in Warrang/Sydney, Australia. One of the Powerhouse Museum’s 2021 Generation Fellows, Indira is a creative powerhouse herself. Testament to her curiosity and willingness to “try anything and learn everything”, Indira writes, performs, arranges, produces and engineers her music, self-releases through her newly-established label ‘Loba Records’, and handles creative direction of her projects.

GENERATIONS FELLOWSHIP

The Generations Fellowship connects artists with established industry experts and mentors, to pass on intergenerational knowledge and create pathways in the music industry. Established in 2020, this is a partnership between Create NSW, Powerhouse and Australian music management and touring company, Astral People.

Valued at $100,000, the Fellowship supports three early career solo artists or groups to carry out six months of professional development. Each Fellow is provided with $25,000 in financial support, and in-kind support in the form of studio space at Powerhouse Ultimo or Powerhouse Castle Hill, with industry mentoring and networking facilitated by Astral People throughout each residency.