Strikes, Scabs and Augmented Reality in Broken Hill

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Postcards were the ‘Social Media’ of years gone by. See history come to life through the development of reproduction props, costumes, and Augmented Reality Postcards inspired by famous Broken Hill postcard photographs featuring short video clips produced locally for ‘United We Stand: Strikes Scabs and Solidarity in Broken Hill’.

INSERT PIC OF one or two ACTUAL POSTCARDS OF GRAVES

In the early years of Broken Hill, it was common for people to reproduce postcards to share with the community. This was done for a number of reasons. Some of the most famous examples of Broken Hill postcards were the images of mock graves and campsites captured and shared during the militant 1909 Lockout and early Picnic Days. In the lockout, Tom Mann famously unionised the workforce and helped convince the workers of BHP to strike for better wages. He then took the postcards to England to assist motivating workers to join the cause for solidarity in the labour movement there.

Caption: some of the crew who helped bring history to life. Film shoot in Dec 2021.

About the Project:

Based on the successful United We Stand Tourist play, funding was secured for a NSW Government Heritage Grant to develop United We Stand: Strikes Scabs & Solidarity in Broken Hill, which included the development of props and costumes to produce Augmented Reality Postcards featuring recreations of several postcards from this period.

The final postcards produced focussed on the early unionisation period of Broken Hill’s history and feature two postcards from the 1909 lockout and one of a picnic in a creek bed in 1908. In addition to recreating mock graves and costumes from the period, we were able to incorporate Augmented Reality experience to bring history to life. Th post cards are for sale at selected museums as a fundraising initiate to help these vital community resources. Check out ‘Outback Museum Stories’ to find out more about Broken Museum experiences.

How it works:

By scanning the QR code you can access the technology to hold a mobile device over the video to watch a video as the post card has come to life. Read on for examples of the postcards as well as the reference images and videos created.