2025 Creative in Residence group exhibition announced
After receiving more than 70 applications for our 2024 Creative in Residence Program, we were truly overwhelmed by the exceptional quality of proposals from a diverse group of artists, designers, writers, performers, and musicians. We wanted to see more of these impactful projects being realised at the Victorian Archives Centre.
PROV is excited to announce that in May 2025, the VAC Gallery will launch a group exhibition showcasing an additional five creatives from the initial group of applicants.
Congratulations to our 2025 Creatives in Residence, Emile Zile, Sam Wallman, Shannon Slee, Susan Fitzgerald and Queer-ways. Read more below about their research interests and the work unfolding.
L-R: George Keats, LUCIANO, Sam Wallman, Susan Fitzgerald and Shannon Slee at the Victorian Archives Centre.
Artist Susan Fitzgerald is a graphic designer and illustrator with a passion for typography and letter forms. She's particularly curious about the vast array of writing styles present in the historic PROV collection dating back to the 1830s, and has focused her research on transportation related typography. The collection is a giant preservation space for the lost craft of cursive handwriting as well as people's records so there's no shortage of inspiration. She has been researching samples of hand painted signage, advertising materials like posters and public transport ephemera. Her work will recreate public transport ticket designs, explore their production process and any related ephemera.
"I'm interested in taking people on a trip down memory lane, showcasing a range of material from the recent and distant past, and considering their context within broader social, economic and technical developments." Susan Fitzgerald
Visual artist Shannon Slee is interested in the Inquest Deposition Files of deaths resulting from abortion between the years 1859 to 1973.
"Public Record Office Victoria contains 916 Inquest Deposition Files associated with Victorian women's deaths caused by abortion from 1859 to 1973, a grim reminder of the effects of state controls on women's bodies. This project will be a memorial quilt for these women." Shannon Slee
Illustrator Sam Wallman is inspired by the vast historic photographic records in the Public Record Office Victoria collection of Melbourne’s docks, from their early beginnings as wooden wharves through to their current era servicing massive container ships, Sam will produce a series of illustrations hanging in front of the photographs that inspired them. As a part time wharfie himself, he likes to draw particular attention to the toil of dockworkers throughout Melbourne’s maritime history.
"The archives are a collective property, a kind of commons, and I am grateful to have an excuse to sniff around them. Vijay Prashad once said that “You go to the past not as a destination but as a resource. This is why we go back to the past, to learn in defeat. In the ruins. To learn what shines, like a magpie. That is what a historian should be, a magpie in the ruins.” I always liked that quote." Sam Wallman
Queer-ways collaborators (LUCIANO and George Keats) will highlight past punishment of people who chose gender non-conforming clothing, by recreating the outfits worn by people when they were arrested. Victorian Vagrants will replicate small-scale miniature fashions, with copies of the records themselves printed onto custom fabric.
"As two queer people with gender non-conforming presentations, we both connect to this history and are driven to amplify the stories of the gender non-conforming people before us, to both pay respect and ensure that their stories are maintained for posterity." LUCIANO of Queerways
Artist Emile Zile will be Creating a personal essay film exploring social relationships mediated by documents, state administration, handwriting and the act of recording.
"The opportunity to work with PROV on a wide-ranging large-scale public project is both thrilling and daunting. The immense, almost unfathomable collection that PROV offers to work with is a storyteller's dream, each archival drawer opening offering multiple narratives and ways of telling stories of our shared history. Having created performances and films in the past from historical archives and legacies, this opportunity to work in the belly of PROV to generate new creative work is a compelling offer and one I take seriously." Emile Zile
The free group exhibition of their creative works will open on May 29th 2025 at the VAC Centre on Shiel Street, North Melbourne.