2023 Award Outcomes
Christopher Breach
Master of Architecture, Melbourne School of Design, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
Aboriginal Architecture
The Grimwade Collection includes several artworks that capture Aboriginal architecture as it was around the time of early occupation. Examples include “Part of the harbour of Port Jackson, and the country between Sydney and the Blue Mountains, New South Wales” by James Taylor (draughtsman) and Robert Havell & Son (engraver) from 1823, and “Panoramic view of King George's Sound, part of the colony of Swan River" by Robert Dale (draughtsman) and Robert Havell Jr (engraver) from 1834.
I have implemented a closer focus on the Aboriginal architecture shown in these artworks through a subtle intervention — a screen with a hole or opening that focuses the eye on the dwellings, while obscuring the rest of the artwork from easy view. In this context, the screen becomes an inversion of our so-called ‘secret history,' highlighting, rather than obscuring, the enduring legacy of Aboriginal knowledge and ingenuity.
Jacobin Bosman
Graduate Diploma in Arts (Advanced), School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts
Tree Murder and War Trauma: Emotions and Early Conservation in Interwar Australia
Often characterised by materialism, the 1920s also marked a flourishing of urban greening and conservationism. These discourses are represented in Will Dyson’s 1927 newspaper illustration Please don’t cut down the tree, it’s where I live.
My research project connects Dyson’s illustration with his experience as a poet and war artist on the Western Front. The bush not only occupied a key place in Dyson’s work, but throughout the press and literature of the interwar period: a longed-for Arcadia from which suffering Diggers were disconnected. Such works reflect not only an affective belief in the bush as a powerful source of healing and solace for broken men and a troubled nation.
Madeline Frohlich & Willow Ross
Master of Cultural Geography, School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Faculty of Science
Wood, brass screws, porcelain, silver, bone: Denaturalising everyday objects in the Miegunyah archive
What are the roles of domestic objects in the social reproduction of colonial society? In this presentation, we use object biography to unpack the Miegunyah archive and interrogate the mundane processes that turn stolen lands into fabled white possessions.
The social and material histories of a table, a plate, a cutlery set and a pair of teapots tell us about placemaking and Empire, taking us from dining rooms to University House and into the space of the archive itself. This project is an invitation to the table, to sit down and interrogate our place in the everyday rituals of ongoing colonisation—over a cup of tea.
Nasim Patel
Bachelor of Arts (Screen and Cultural studies, Islamic Studies), School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
Equivalent Voids: The Migration of the Cameleers
Between 1860 and the 1920s, migrant cameleers formed the mainstay of inland transport across colonial Australia. Young camels (1891) depicts a caravan of cameleers moving across a desert, although it is ultimately unclear if this piece was added to the Grimwade's collection during their worldly travels or through their interest in Australian colonial history. My research project reflects on colonial perceptions of desert landscapes as equivalent voids, and the cultural position of the cameleers and their camels who integrated themselves into their new environment.
Watch Nasim's performance
Shannon Slee
Master of Contemporary Art, Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts & Music
TO FANNY LOVE MAB
To Fanny Love Mab, is a textile investigation of the archive. Focussing on two women, Mab Grimwade (nee Kelly), often overshadowed by her husband and Fanny Anne Charsley, botanical artist and author of The Wild Flowers Around Melbourne (1867). This project brings together these two women with their shared enthusiasm to both recognise and conserve Australian native plants. While Mab loved flower arrangement and had a whole room dedicated to the art, Fanny excelled in botanical painting, and on her return to England, published her book. To Fanny Love Mab, brings their methodologies together in my own medium of choice, reclaimed textiles.
Shiyun Zheng
Master of Art Curatorship, School of Culture and Communication, Faculty of Arts
Russell Grimwade’s Motoring World
In the all-encompassing world of Russell Grimwade, a prominent Australian figure in business and philanthropy, science, chemistry, botany, photography, and cabinetry all played an integral role in portraying Russell’s flair and personality. Russell’s passion for motoring, however, shed light on his curious and playful spirit through youthful adventures in his private life and informed a more complete picture of his personal sides. By combing through historical photographs, archival news articles, and personal memorabilia in the University’s Grimwade Collections and Archives, my research pieces together Russell’s motoring journey, highlighted by his 1905 first-ever Melbourne-Adelaide road trip and motoring anecdotes.