The Collaborative Museum: Embedding Cultural Infrastructure in the City. In partnership with the Museum of Arts and Applied Sciences, this project analyses the developing, complex processes of collaboration needed to embed the new Powerhouse Museum within the key Western Sydney city of Parramatta. The project’s significance lies in exploring the concept of the ‘collaborative museum’ as a synergising agent, proposing an invaluable, ground-breaking framework for establishing community-embedded cul ....The Collaborative Museum: Embedding Cultural Infrastructure in the City. In partnership with the Museum of Arts and Applied Sciences, this project analyses the developing, complex processes of collaboration needed to embed the new Powerhouse Museum within the key Western Sydney city of Parramatta. The project’s significance lies in exploring the concept of the ‘collaborative museum’ as a synergising agent, proposing an invaluable, ground-breaking framework for establishing community-embedded cultural infrastructure. Its outcomes will be beneficial across the entire cultural sector in shaping dynamic programs and encounters that resonate both locally and globally in underpinning an exciting model for conducting innovative, engaged research in large, diverse and culturally under-resourced metropolitan regions. Read moreRead less
Indonesia's postcolonialism: absent, misrecognised or suppressed? This project will study the alleged absence of postcolonialism in Indonesia with a focus on Indonesians of European, Chinese and Indian descent. The various ways in which postcolonial consciousness might be expressed in public life will be explored, and further give due recognition to Indonesia's greater cultural diversity.
Frontiers of Australian science popularisation. This project details Australia's role in science popularisation in the 1960s and 1970s, when the boundary between science fiction and science fact was often blurred. The project will explore how popular science of that era framed today's crucial issues of climate change, overpopulation and space exploration.
Decolonising the human: towards a postcolonial ecology. Do you think you're human? This project interrogates how the notion of mind has come to shape western attitudes about what it means to be human. Focusing on the notorious head-measuring practices of colonial times, it provokes a rethinking of our cherished claim of being privileged among other life-forms.
Creativity and cultural production in the Hunter: an applied ethnographic study of new entrepreneurial systems in the creative industries. This project will be an applied study of key collaborative groups across all the major creative industries in the Hunter region in New South Wales. Mapping these industries' approach to creativity and cultural production in the digital realm will provide detailed insights into the dynamic systems at the heart of creative industries.
Fringe to Famous: Contemporary Australian Culture as an Innovation System. The project examines the crossover between ‘alternative’ and ‘mainstream’ cultural production in Australia, identifying ways in which a hybridisation between the avant garde and the popular promotes the development of cultural industries. It will conduct a detailed study of five cases: comedy (Working Dog and the Chaser), music (Mental as Anything, Paul Kelly and Nick Cave), visual arts/graphic design (Mambo Graphics), sh ....Fringe to Famous: Contemporary Australian Culture as an Innovation System. The project examines the crossover between ‘alternative’ and ‘mainstream’ cultural production in Australia, identifying ways in which a hybridisation between the avant garde and the popular promotes the development of cultural industries. It will conduct a detailed study of five cases: comedy (Working Dog and the Chaser), music (Mental as Anything, Paul Kelly and Nick Cave), visual arts/graphic design (Mambo Graphics), short film (Tropfest) and games development (Freeplay). It will identify the conditions which have allowed crossover between the avant-garde and the mainstream and produce recommendations for policy both in cultural development and the development of creative industries.Read moreRead less
Do-it-yourself popular music archives: an international comparative study of volunteer-run institutions that preserve popular music's material culture. Enthusiasts play a crucial role in the way that popular music and its culture is remembered. This project looks at instances of community-based, volunteer-run archives which are working to assemble material related to popular music and explores the contributions of these 'DIY institutions' to the preservation of these artefacts for the future.
Voyages of Myth: Captain Cook in the Popular Australian Imagination. The approaches and writings that will be produced from this project can be taken up by national institutions such as museums and libraries and used as a vehicle to promote a different kind of national debate beyond fact or fiction or even right and wrong. Our outcomes should influence the collection design of national archives and suggest original and incisive frameworks for staging national displays of identity and the past. P ....Voyages of Myth: Captain Cook in the Popular Australian Imagination. The approaches and writings that will be produced from this project can be taken up by national institutions such as museums and libraries and used as a vehicle to promote a different kind of national debate beyond fact or fiction or even right and wrong. Our outcomes should influence the collection design of national archives and suggest original and incisive frameworks for staging national displays of identity and the past. Providing a contemporary account of how Cook was and is currently understood qualitatively by a cross section of Australians will provide a powerful set of national connections between an iconic historical figure and the everyday world.
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The politics of (un)forgetting: Indonesia’s nativist decolonisation. The project aims to investigate the dynamics of Indonesia’s politics today as an extended battle to remember or forget violent events, including those which took place around Indonesia’s decolonisation in the 1940s. It will offer new insights into ethical and political issues of how that past has significant bearing upon key political debates in contemporary Indonesia. In addition to conventional archives, the project will exam ....The politics of (un)forgetting: Indonesia’s nativist decolonisation. The project aims to investigate the dynamics of Indonesia’s politics today as an extended battle to remember or forget violent events, including those which took place around Indonesia’s decolonisation in the 1940s. It will offer new insights into ethical and political issues of how that past has significant bearing upon key political debates in contemporary Indonesia. In addition to conventional archives, the project will examine popular culture (cinema, radio, fiction, newspaper) as an innovative research field in its own right. The project aims to deliver richly-nuanced insights about Indonesia and its longstanding connections with Australia beyond the pursuit of material interests.Read moreRead less
Social Memory and Historical Justice: How Democratic Societies Remember and Forget the Victimisation of Minorities in the Past. We will analyse how the victimisation of minorities is publicly and collectively remembered in a range of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the Ukraine, Austria, Germany, Peru, Chile and the USA. We will identify key factors that enable democratic societies to work towards historical justice. By exploring how memories are contested and how communities ....Social Memory and Historical Justice: How Democratic Societies Remember and Forget the Victimisation of Minorities in the Past. We will analyse how the victimisation of minorities is publicly and collectively remembered in a range of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the Ukraine, Austria, Germany, Peru, Chile and the USA. We will identify key factors that enable democratic societies to work towards historical justice. By exploring how memories are contested and how communities actively negotiate the legacies of the past, we will address issues of crucial contemporary concern. The project will provide research training and international experience for a postdoctoral fellow and three doctoral students in an area at the cutting edge of the humanities and social sciences.Read moreRead less