Electronics Drawers

A row of timber parts drawers fills a storage cabinet, each one labelled for a specific component: Power Boards, Special LEDs, Nicads, Torch Bulb Holders, Telephone Wires. Most hang open, empty. Debris has collected on the floor below. The cabinet is ordinary and specific in the way that practical classrooms always are, stocked for a purpose and then stripped of it. The cabinet belonged to Macquarie Boys' Technology High School, a government school on the corner of Kissing Point Road and James Ruse Drive in Rydalmere, New South Wales. The school's origins trace back to post-primary boys' classes operating in Parramatta from 1920. The campus itself was purpose-built in the mid-1950s and occupied by the end of 1957, with the school operating from 1958. In 1989, the word "Technology" was added to the name, reflecting a shift in curriculum emphasis toward practical and technical skills. The parts drawers, with their careful categories of components, belong to that period of the school's identity. In 2007, the NSW Education Minister announced the school's closure, citing an enrolment of 220 students and a projection of 180 for the following year. Years 7 to 10 were discontinued at the beginning of 2008. The remaining Year 11 and 12 students completed their HSC, and the school closed permanently at the end of 2009. The campus sat vacant for nearly a decade. Three separate fires damaged the buildings during that period, including a fire that gutted the main hall in July 2016 and a second that destroyed another building in May 2017. All remaining structures were demolished by November 2018. This photograph was made in 2015, six years into the vacancy. The drawers still hold their labels. The categories are precise. The components are gone.