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State Library Victoria announces 2018 Fellowship recipients

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Tuesday 17 July 2018


Recipients of State Library Victoria Fellowships worth over $200,000, were announced today.

This year’s fellowship program offers research opportunities across diverse areas including children’s literature, social history, visual arts, theatre, Ukrainian studies and, for the first time, Indigenous Victorian Aboriginal Culture.

The inaugural Indigenous Victorian Aboriginal Cultural Research Fellowship supports Aboriginal researchers to explore the Library’s collections and engage with archival records to produce research material that can be used by the community.

Fellows receive a grant of $15,000 for three months’ research, a shared office space, and special access to collections and library experts.

Over the past 16 years, the Library’s fellowship program has delivered around $2.3 million in funding, supporting more than 200 artists, playwrights, writers, poets, historians, composers, and academics.

The proposed outcomes of this year’s Fellowships include a nonfiction graphic novel on key social movements in Victoria; a stage musical about a refugee family living in Melbourne’s Western suburbs; a series of digital animation shorts; and an interactive documentary about a proposed Jewish settlement in remote 1940s Tasmania.

Director of Library Services and Experience Justine Hyde said State Library Victoria is proud to support the state’s creative community through one of the most substantial fellowship programs in the country. “Each year State Library Victoria’s Fellowships Program supports a diverse array of researchers and creatives and this year is no exception.

I’m excited to see the work that results from this talented group, as they shine a light on the Library’s collection and bring it to life in new and innovative ways,” Ms Hyde said.

Past Fellowships have produced major exhibitions, public art installations, documentaries, books, graphic novels, plays, musical scores, interactive games and many other projects.

The Fellowships are funded by State Library Victoria and other program partners, and are awarded annually on the advice of independent expert panels.

2018-19 State Library Victoria Fellowships

Creative Fellowships ($15,000)
Six funded fellowships and two honorary fellowships have been awarded to artists and scholars for developing innovative ways to express the Library’s collections.

Santilla Chingaipe: ‘African migration to Australia: the untold story’ – a film project telling the stories of African migrants who came to Australia pre-federation.

Ella Egidy: ‘Hold your tongue: an illustrated history of control and dissent in Victoria’ – a history of key social issues and movements in Victoria, presented through political propaganda and public art, in the form of a nonfiction graphic novel.

Donna Kendrigan: ‘Hyperrealia’ – will bring to life unique and compelling realia items in the Library’s collection in a series of 20 short digital animation loops.

Dr Liz Rushen: ‘Edmund Finn (alias Garryowen): colonial master of media in Port Phillip and Victoria, 1835 -1852’ – an exploration of the work of Edmund Finn, an Irish migrant to Port Phillip, a journalist for thirty years and an eyewitness to the development of early Melbourne and Victoria. The project will result in a biography, seminar, exhibition, blog and article.

Tim Stone and Aya Hatano: ‘Poynduk - the city that never was. An interactive documentary exploring Critchley Parker Jr.'s proposal to establish a Jewish settlement in South West Tasmania.’

Nikki Tran: ‘Six Days on a Leaky Boat’ – a stage musical set in Melbourne’s western suburbs during the early 1980s that centres on a Chinese-Vietnamese refugee family beginning their lives as new Australians.

Creative Fellowships (Honorary)

Alisa Bunbury: ‘Silent Witness: The Art of Eric Thake (1904 – 1983), painter, printmaker, war artist, photographer and designer’ – a catalogue raisonné of the work of significant Melbourne artist Eric Thake.

Sally Ann McIntyre: ‘a single sound is enough to rouse an archive (talking to the lyrebird about copyright)’ (working title) – a history of sound and radio in Australia and the ability of environmental recording to preserve lost worlds.

The Amor Residency at Baldessin Press Studio ($5,000)
In association with the Baldessin Press, the Amor Residency at St. Andrews is available to a visual artist wishing to explore works on paper, in particular printmaking or artists’ books. The offer may include accommodation, printmaking tuition/technical support, materials or editioning and is funded by Rick Amor.

Glen Skien: ‘Poetics of Ephemera’ – a studio based research project exploring the Library’s archives of ephemera resources, resulting in a series of copper plate etchings with collage elements that will be handbound into a book by the artist.

Berry Family Fellowship ($15,000)
For a project exploring an aspect of the social history of Melbourne or Victoria, based on the State Library Victoria collections. The fellowship is offered every second year to commemorate the contribution of the Berry family to the cultural life of Melbourne and Victoria.

Dominic Gordon: ‘Disengagement’– a collection of Melbourne-centric nonfiction essays, written in an authentic, distinctly Australian voice from the margins.

Children’s Literature Fellowship ($15,000)
For the exploration of children’s book publishing, writing or illustrating.

Leanne Hall: ‘The Celestial – a YA novel about celebrity, politics, race, performance and identity in Melbourne on the eve of WWII.’

Children’s Literature Fellowship (Honorary)

John Oldmeadow: ‘A contextual, biographical and custodial history of the development of the Dromkeen Collection, referencing the Library's completed listing of the Dromkeen (MS) collection at SLV’.

Emerging Writers Fellowship ($2000)
Delivered in partnership with the Emerging Writers’ Festival, thisinaugural fellowship for an emerging writer provides a dedicated space in the State Library for one month, access to the Library’s collections, and learning, development and networking opportunities at the Emerging Writers’ Festival.

Susie Anderson: ‘Research of images, articles and records relating to Wergaia/Wemba Wemba/Wotjabulok culture of the Western Kulin nation around Gariwerd (Grampians)’ – the project will research Koori culture of the Western Kulin nations and will lead to the writing and/or recording of several audio pieces, in collaboration with Koori art collective This Mob.

Georges Mora Fellowship ($10,000)
For a contemporary artist to study, experiment and explore fresh thinking in their art.

Dr Jude Walton: ‘Research into women who existed on the margins of the Surrealist movement in Paris and Melbourne, towards the making of Nadja-Leona (remembering a woman who) based on Andre Breton’s book ‘Nadja” – a new activated installation, performance and illustrated floor talk.

Indigenous Victorian Aboriginal Cultural Research Fellowship ($15,000)
Open to researchers who identify as an Indigenous Victorian Aboriginal, this fellowship aims to increase Aboriginal Victorians' access to cultural knowledge held in the Library's collections by supporting researchers to identify important items and produce research material to be used by the community.

Hartley Briggs: ‘Cultural Tourism – Connections, In Black and White’ – a series of publications such as posters and books that will provide a more accessible format of cultural material for use by the Indigenous Victorian Aboriginal Community and wider community.

John Emmerson Research Fellowship ($15,000)
For research with a particular emphasis on the reign of King Charles I and the English Civil War.

Prof. Susan Wiseman: ‘The ‘collection’ and the English Civil War: shaping scholarship and memory’ – analysing the significance of the ‘collection’ as a shaping influence on the way both memory and scholarship has understood the turbulent period of the wars and their aftermath.

Redmond Barry Fellowship ($20,000)
For the production of literary works. This fellowship allows for three to six months’ research and is funded in association with the University of Melbourne.

Dr Jillian Graham: ‘Beyond the Stave: A Biography of Australian Composer and Arts Activist Margaret Sutherland (1897 – 1984)’ – the first biography of this unconventional and iconic Australian figure. Margaret Sutherland was one of the most innovative and influential composers of the first half of the twentieth century, and an advocate for composers and for the arts in Australia in general.

Ukrainian Studies Foundation in Australia Fellowship ($15,000)
A specialist fellowship to support applicants wanting to utilise the Library's collections on a project exploring Ukrainian history and/or culture in Australia and in particular in Victoria.

Eugene Perepletchikov: ‘Three Fold’ – a documentary film that aims to explore how Ukrainian culture has been maintained and transmitted through three consecutive generations of migrants starting from the post WWII arrivals in Victoria.

Note: The Digital Fellowship was not awarded this year.