Funded research
Urban Images and the Appearance of City Spaces
Chief investigators: Professor Alison Young
Funding until 30 June 2011
This project will constitute the first study of street art as a new genre of cultural practice in city spaces. Street art is becoming an increasingly important issue for social policy and for youth culture. With many advocating a punitive approach to street art, the stakes for young people are high, risking criminalization in carrying out their art practices. The project will examine the emergence of street art and has significant strategic value in its capacity to inform balanced policy development and to improve understanding of the effects of and motivations behind street art.
Australian Research Council Discovery-Project Grant
Minutes of Evidence project: promoting new and collaborative ways of understanding Australia's past and engaging with structural justice
Chief Investigators: Dr Julie Evans, Dr Jennifer Balint, Dr Nesam McMillan
Funding until 2013
The project seeks to advance public awareness of social inequalities and to strengthen the fabric of Australian society by promoting a shared understanding of the nation's past. Through a unique collaboration between academics, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous creative artists, educators, and government and community organisations, the project offers innovative tools and methods - including public performance outcomes - to promote effective public engagement with Australia's history and its legacy, sparking new conversations about structural justice and injustice within, and between, Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.
At the heart of the Linkage collaboration lies a unique public performance, Coranderrk: We Will Show The Country. Coranderrk draws on the voices of Aboriginal and European men and women who, in 1881, testified before a Commission of Inquiry appointed by the Victorian Government to determine the fate of the Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve. Consisting entirely of extracts from the official 'Minutes of Evidence', Coranderrk creates a public opportunity for a personal connection with actual voices of the past, allowing key historical figures – such as the Wurundjeri leader William Barak, and European figures such as Ann Bon, John Green and Edward Curr and others – to speak directly to a contemporary audience.
The project will support the incorporation of Indigenous perspectives on the past and present into the mainstream curriculum of Victorian secondary schools; provide research training and funding for an Indigenous RHD student and research training for four Indigenous policy officers; produce new ways of conceptualising the ongoing effects of historical injustices experienced in different times and contexts; and promote reconciliation through supporting the development of a shared historical consciousness between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities in Australia.
The 'Minutes of Evidence' project partners are: University of Melbourne, Ilbijerri Theatre Company, La Mama Theatre, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, VicHealth, Arts Victoria, Koorie Heritage Trust, Victorian Aboriginal Education Association, Regional Arts Victoria, State Library of Victoria, Deakin University, Sussex University, Royal Holloway University of London.