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Home > Get involved > Fellowships > Library fellows

Library fellows

Since 2003, the State Library's annual fellowship program has nurtured and supported the creative and scholarly endeavours of hundreds of writers, scholars and creatives, exploring a diverse range of projects.

Manuscripts, children's books, art installations, musical performances, animations – you name it, and one of our fellows has probably researched it!

Explore our fellows gallery to learn more about the inspiring projects undertaken by past and present fellows, and the innovative ways they've transformed the State Collection.

Hayley Millar-Baker

89

Hayley used her 2019 Photography Fellowship to reconstruct written, verbal and visual histories - held in the Library's archives and produced from a predominantly colonial Australian perspective - from an Aboriginal perspective.

Her work I Will Survive was the feature of an immersive outdoor photography display on the Library’s lower forecourt as part of the PHOTO 2021 international festival of photography.

Luke Keogh

142

Previous Redmond Barry fellow Luke Keogh’s book The Wardian case: how a simple box moved plants and changed the world details a fascinating tale in natural history.

The Wardian case tells the story of how a 19th-century naturalist accidentally discovered a way to transport plants long distances, and how this discovery laid the foundation for the global trade in plants that has underpinned global agriculture, floristry and botany in the 200 years since.

During his 2017 fellowship at the Library, Luke performed the foundational research for the book which won the 2021 NSW Premier’s General History award.

Christopher Bryant

148

Christopher won the inaugural Russell Beedles Performing Arts Fellowship with his play The other place. His play explored the lives of two influential women of theatre, director Betty Burstall, founder of La Mama, and Buzz Goodbody, founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company's experimental theatre, the Other place. Watch a video of a reading of the play, performed in Queen's Hall on 3 June 2016 by actors Kathy Schoenjahn and Trelawney Edgar.

Minna Muhlen-Schulte

148

During her 2014 Berry Family Fellowship, Minna Muhlen-Schulte researched the wartime experience of her German grandfather and Australian grandmother, who relocated to Berlin on the eve of WWII. Watch Minna discussing her project with fellow historian Dr Sandra McComb in this video of an authors-in-conversation event held at the State Library in March 2017.

Sue Broadway

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Sue Broadway used her 2014 Creative Fellowship to research Victoria's circus and vaudeville history. Her fellowship resulted in a stunning event held in the State Library's Queen's Hall in July 2016. Titled Vaudevillia, the promenade-style performance included chair balancing, chorus girls, clowns, jugglers and more, with archival sound and images from the Library's collection.

Sharon Huebner

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As part of her 2014 Creative Fellowship, Sharon Huebner explored the historical biography of Minang Noongar (Western Australia) woman Bessy Flowers. This research drew on collaborations with Bessy’s Wirlomin Minang Noongar kin and her Koorie descendants as part of Sharon’s doctoral project at the Monash Indigenous Centre. In the video, Sharon discusses her discoveries during an event held at the State Library in December 2016.

William Kelly

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Humanist artist William Kelly used his 2014 Creative Fellowship to research Australian visual artists practising between World War I and today, whose works have been informed by their beliefs about war and peace. This research resulted in the book Fellow travellers and a folio produced through the Baldessin Press, Not in my name. Watch the video of William leading a panel discussion exploring the art of peace.

Barking Spider Visual Theatre

146

Barking Spider Visual Theatre was granted a special fellowship in 2013 as part of the Library's dome centenary celebrations. Their spectacular performance/fashion parade, Liberty of the press, was memorably presented during Melbourne Spring Fashion Week in September 2014. Merging the contemporary catwalk with live performance and tableaux vivants, the event was inspired by and featured the Library's extraordinary Press Dress. A prized feature of our collection, the dress is made up of silk panels printed with the front pages of 19th-century Melbourne newspapers, created for Mrs Matilda Butters to wear to a mayoral fancy dress ball in September 1866.

Kaz Cooke

154

Well-known Australian writer and cartoonist Kaz Cooke used her 2013 Creative Fellowship to create a fashion installation, Raiment and regalia, which was a popular feature in the Library's Dome gallery exhibition, The changing face of Victoria. Kaz's mini-exhibition explored popular allegiances from footy jumpers to hens’ night tiaras, and was accompanied by an equally fabulous blog, highlighting the Library's important role as a bountiful source of whimsical, quirky and downright strange memorabilia, photographs and realia. In 2015, Kaz hosted a discussion exploring the story behind one of our most unusual items, a Victorian-era mourning brooch made of gold and woven hair. Watch a film of the event by clicking the image above.

Adrian McNeil

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Adrian McNeil was granted a Creative Fellowship in 2013. Adrian used his fellowship to research notations published in a collection of music books sent to Victoria by the Bengali aristocrat Sourendra Mohan Tagore in the late 19th century. In November 2014, an ensemble of internationally renowned Indian and Western musicians brought Tagore's music to life in a concert held at the Library. Adrian plays the sarod, and is a senior lecturer in ethnomusicology at Monash University.

Dr Ruth Pullin

154

Dr Ruth Pullin's 2012 Creative Fellowship led to the publication of The artist as traveller: the sketchbooks of Eugene von Guérard. Retracing the momentous journeys that shaped Eugene von Guérard’s career through the lens of his sketchbooks, her book presents substantial new research on the artist. It was published in March 2018, and accompanied an exhibition curated by Ruth at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.

Stefan Schutt

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Dr Stefan Schutt was granted a Berry Family Fellowship in 2012. 

He used his fellowship to carry out research on the Lewis & Skinner signwriting firm, after he discovered a trove of company documents at a building site in Footscray.

His research resulted in the online Lewis & Skinner archive, which provides a repository of images, places and people in Melbourne's west since the 1940s, as well as a blog on ghost signs, Finding the radio book. In early 2014 he held an exhibition about the Lewis & Skinner project at a Footscray gallery.

Angela Cavalieri

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Angela Cavalieri is an award-winning artist who is well known for her text-based, large-scale artworks and exquisite artist’s books. Angela received a Creative Fellowship in 2012 to continue her interest in the relationship between art and music. Her research focused on the Library’s extensive collection of opera and madrigal scores by 16th-century Italian composers. The result was a series of large-scale lino-cut prints entitled Canzone: music as storytelling. This short film by Greg Wallis documents the creation of Angela's artwork Guerra e amore, which was displayed at the Library in 2014.

Margaret Bowman

149

Margaret Bowman AO researched a book about George Gilbert as part of her 2011 Creative Fellowship. Drawing on the rich resources of the Library, she explored the life of this teacher, artist and founder of Melbourne's first art school, and reproduced his landscape artworks. Margaret's book, Cultured colonists, was published in 2014, highlighting Gilbert's important role in Melbourne's cultural life.

Sasha Grishin

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A visual artist, historian and academic, Professor Sasha Grishin was awarded an honorary fellowship in 2009 to produce a catalogue raisonné about goldfields artist ST Gill and his public. This research resulted in the Library's 2015 exhibition Australian sketchbook: Colonial life and the work of ST Gill. For insights into his fellowship research, watch this video with Sasha in conversation with broadcaster Virginia Trioli.

Meredith Fletcher

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In 2008, Meredith Fletcher was awarded a Creative Fellowship to research the life and work of writer and botanist Jean Galbraith. The resulting book, Jean Galbraith: Writer in a valley, was published in 2014. A historian specialising in environmental, local and community history, Meredith is an adjunct research fellow at the School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies at Monash University.

Fiona Tuomy and Liz Burke

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Fiona and Liz used their 2008 Creative Fellowship to research the development of Australian cultural identity in the 1970s. Their project was commissioned as the ABC TV Arts documentary Helen Garner's Monkey Grip, which won the 2015 ATOM Award for Best Documentary - Short Form (30 minutes or less).

Trinh Vu

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Melbourne-based contemporary artist Trinh Vu was awarded a Georges Mora Foundation Fellowship in 2007. Her installation, Blue skies, was exhibited in the Library in 2011. Trinh uses digital tools, including 3D-modelling software, to experiment with alternative construction processes, generating new forms and ideas. She works as a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Art and Design at Monash University.

Dr Ross McMullin

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Dr Ross McMullin's 2007 Creative Fellowship resulted in the publication of his award-winning book, Farewell, dear people: Biographies of Australia's lost generation. The book was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize for Australian History and also won the National Cultural Award.

Farewell, dear people explores the lives of 10 Australians of outstanding potential who exemplify our lost generation of WWI, including an internationally renowned medical scientist, an Antarctic explorer, a Rhodes scholar, a barrister, a winemaker, a footballer, a rising Labor star and a popular farmer who inspired the film Gallipoli.