2015 McCoy Seed Fund Projects
The Invisible Farmer
Securing the Place of Farming Women in Victoria’s Historical Narrative - Prof Joy Damousi and Liza Dale-Hallet will document the first cohort of female agricultural graduates from the University of Melbourne and establish a strategic collecting process to document the Rural Women’s Movement.
Ochres, Isotopes and Aboriginal Cultural Knowledge
Prof Janet Hergt, John Woodhead and Philip Batty study will investigate the benefits of radiogenic Pb-isotope analysis of ochres in determining the provenance (distribution, movement, etc.) of artefacts used by Aboriginal people in Central Australia. Philip Batty will be working with traditional Aboriginal owners including an owner of a traditional Arrernte mine, Mark Inkamala (pictured excavating ochre).
First Peoples in a Fiery Landscape
Insights into the timing of Aboriginal presence in south-eastern Australia via a multi-disciplinary, integrated study of Victoria’s recent volcanic past - Dr Erin Matchan and Dermot Henry aim to improve our understanding of the timing of the earliest Aboriginal inhabitation of southeastern Australia by integrating oral histories of the Gunditjmara people with archaeological evidence of human presence in the early volcanic landscape and age constraints for relevant volcanoes as obtained via high-precision 40Ar/39Ar dating studies.
Mapping and visualising children’s folklore
Enhancing and connecting Museum Victoria’s Australian Children’s Folklore Collection using network, visualisation and crowd-sourcing tools at the University of Melbourne’s eScholarship Research Centre - A/Prof Gavan McCarthy, Prof Kate Darian-Smith and Richard Gillespie will explore how innovative documentation systems, visualisation tools and crowdsourcing technologies can enhance and interconnect large institutional collections.
Understanding and enhancing urban pollinator biodiversity via wildlife gardening and citizen scientists
Dr Nicholas Williams and Ken Walker aim to better understand the effectiveness of wildlife gardening for providing pollinator foraging and nesting habitat, and to test ways to enhance the urban matrix to support insect pollinator biodiversity.
Mapping and visualising children's folklore
A STRAPA and a $5000 top-up scholarship was awarded to Mr Michael Jones in 2014 as part of the 2015 McCoy Project; "Mapping and visualising children's folklore". Mr Jones will examine the technical and socio-cultural foundations of Museum Victoria’s collections and systems, working with MV staff and drawing on comparative studies at the University of Melbourne (and elsewhere) to develop conceptual and practical approaches to the management and dissemination of interconnected artefactual collections and archives.