Miegunyah Student Project Awardees bring Grimwade collection to life, University of Melbourne, 12 September 2025

University of Melbourne students across five faculties have presented their research as awardees of the 2025 Miegunyah Student Project Awards, bringing new life to cultural items from the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Collection.

The 11 students produced seven unique research presentations and uncovered new perspectives on works of art and related cultural and archival items in the Grimwade Collection.

Director of University Museums and Collections, Rose Hiscock, noted how the Miegunyah Student Project Awards represent a distinct element of the University’s cultural offering.

“This initiative gives students special access to the Grimwade Collection and turns its artworks and objects into living resources for student discovery,” she said.

“Through hands-on collections research, students build critical thinking skills, connect theory with practice and learn to work across disciplines. These are all experiences that stay with them well beyond the classroom and shape the contributions they make in their fields.”

The Miegunyah Student Project Awards provided $2000 to support each project and the 2025 cohort represented the one of the most diverse mix of faculties since the program began in 2013. Over AU$100,000 has been awarded to students through the program since 2013.

Throughout the program, students also worked closely with the University’s Museums and Collections team, gaining first-hand experience in handling, researching and presenting cultural material.

Miegunyah Student Project Award winner from the Faculty of Science Georgie Hoadley commented on the unique benefits of their experience.

“Visiting the storeroom to see the photographs I’ve been working with was an incredible opportunity,” Hoadley said.

“In a classroom you’re generally studying alongside people in the same or adjacent disciplines, whereas the Miegunyah Award brought together a really diverse cohort. Being exposed to the work of students with such a range of perspectives and experiences was both a rare and exciting opportunity.”

The Miegunyah Student Project Awards are generously supported by the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Fund.

The 2025 Miegunyah Student Project Award winners and their projects:

• Alex Williams, Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours), Faculty of Fine Arts and Music
  • Deep Listening the rapids of so-called “Dights Falls” (Emergency): Colonialism, Terraforming and Pollution
• Georgie Hoadley, Graduate Diploma of Urban Horticulture, Faculty of Science
  • From Civility to Surveillance: The Cultivation and Contestation of Colonial Values in Naarm’s Fitzroy Gardens
• Clarissa Sothy, Bachelor of Arts, Faculty of Arts
  • The Grimwades’ Fine China: The Grimwade Collection and Australian Interactions with Colonised Asia
• Elena Stefanos & Diego Satkofsky, Master of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
  • Fragile Orientations
• Kieran Benn & Samantha Eala, Doctor of Medicine and Master of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences
  • Lono to Liberation: The Makini Mask Through Time
• Anna Myers-Lyons & Juliet Day, Bachelor of Arts and Master of Art Curatorship, Faculty of Arts
  • Gariwerd/Grampians
• Angela Mckenna & Ethan Patrick, Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts
  • Unquiet Voices: A serial speculative fiction that hears marginal voices in the archive