Start searching your cupboards

One of Australia's leading authorities on the Art Deco period is asking Albury residents to start searching their garages and cupboards for hidden treasures.

Melbourne curator, Tracey Judd Iva, is hoping local people will find Art Deco furniture, old toasters, kettles, lamps, crockery or even vacuum cleaners, which can be featured in a blockbuster exhibition she is planning for AlburyCity.

The exhibition will reveal Art Deco's impact on regional Australia from 1910-1939, with a particular focus on Albury.

"What's so exciting is that Albury is a great centre of Art Deco architecture," says Ms Iva, who grew up in Albury.

Ms Iva says the project follows on the heels of the international Art Deco exhibition she curated for the National Gallery of Victoria - the second most successful in the museum's history, attracting 250,000 people through the door.

"That indicates the passion and nostalgia the public has for the Art Deco movement," says Ms Iva, who spent five years pulling the exhibition together.

She says amazing cars, motorbikes, clothes, photographs and films have already been sourced for the Albury exhibition, but she is keen to see what else local people may have stashed away in their cupboards. She says people should not underestimate what items could represent show-stoppers.

"One of the most popular objects at the Melbourne exhibition was a meat slicer from America that was used in a deli," she says.

"It was shaped like a streamlined car."

The Art Deco show, which will include AlburyCity's collection of Art Deco paintings, photographs and decorative arts, is the main exhibition planned for 2011 and will be featured across both the Art Gallery and LibraryMuseum.