Welcome to D*Hub’s new ‘Loves’ column. We’ve invited design lovers to share their favourite object in the Powerhouse Museum Collection.

Fenella Kernebone is a long-time fan of great design and is first to share what she loves most in the Museum’s deep and delicious collection.

Fenella Kernebone loves …

I love the Super8 camera because I love the quality of the film, it has a romantic feel to it and it’s on the verge of being obsolete. But mostly I love it because it reminds me of my Dad, who used it to capture footage of me and my siblings.

The object makes me feel nostalgic, a little guilty and also a little sad. Nostalgic for the look and feel, the texture, it is so interwoven with my memories under the age of about eight years old. Guilty because I don’t know where the film is that Dad took, and sad because it reminds me of those moments as a little kids, the positives and also it’s the anniversary of my Dad’s death today.

The Super8 is significant because in today’s world, everything is captured so easily. Every moment can be captured on a digital camera or an iPhone and then they can post it to a social media site. Obviously when I was a kid, it was a completely different beast. Film was so expensive for most people and it only lasted three minutes, sometimes there was no sound. That meant what was captured of us was a special occasion. It was rarefied.  For people who grew up before the 80s, it was really a snap shot of an era, of my generation.

The Super8 makes me think of weird sports carnivals where Dad filmed us running or something like that, that was pretty shaky vision and then we’d watch it later that night when Dad had set up the projector.

I actually have one or two in storage, I have Dad’s one and haven’t used it for years.

Fenella Kernebone is the presenter of By Design on ABC Radio National.