After a busy November, with several ‘Materialising Memories’ team members and professor David Frohlich visiting us in Sydney, it was a bit quiet in the office in December. But not for long, because in early January we had the pleasure of welcoming Connie Golsteijn from the UK who came to visit us for three weeks.

Connie is a PhD student at the University of Surrey and nearing completion of her doctoral thesis. Her PhD work is on physical and digital craft, and how these crafts can be integrated into hybrid craft. She is co-supervised by Materialising Memories project leader dr. Elise van den Hoven.

Of particular interest concerning ‘Materialising Memories’ is Connie’s paper about cherishable objects . We often keep objects because memories are attached to them. However, digital objects are often less valued than their physical counterparts, and in this study she investigated how they are perceived differently and the various advantages and disadvantages of digital, physical and hybrid objects.

Interestingly, she found that digital objects were often valued because they were self-created by the owner. This finding led to several other studies investigating digital, physical and hybrid craft, about which she gave a presentation at our faculty for a mixed audience of scholars in Sydney.

Having someone in the office who is way ahead in her PhD process is a great advantage for discussing all kinds of PhD-related topics. But there is also an important informal benefit of having a guest; that is, accompanying the guest to explore Sydney and surrounding areas, and Australian life. Several weekends have been spent on outings together and last weekend’s Australia Day holiday was celebrated with a barbecue (I mean ‘barbie’) in the park.

Doménique ended his blog with a cute baby wallaby. I will end with a photo of a Water Dragon we met on our walk from The Spit to Manly. This beautiful animal had no fear of the camera, so he is clearly a candidate for a successful career as a top model.