The State Library of Victoria (SLV) is drawing on its 165 years of recording our stories to launch a public appeal aiming to raise $100,000 to document the effects of COVID-19 and recent bushfires on Victoria's regional and rural communities.
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The photography project, Focus on country Victoria, will engage five local photographers from five Victorian regions to unearth local stories of loss and resilience in the aftermath of the trials of 2020.
These pictures, along with a collection of oral histories, will be added to the State collection, ensuring that the unique and deeply personal experiences of regional and rural communities can be shared with current and future generations, says the SLV.
The State Library of Victoria's collection, curation and engagement manager Toni Burton said funds raised from the appeal will play a vital role in documenting the experience of country Victoria, and giving country communities a voice in the state collection.
"Last year, we ran a pilot project commissioning four photographers to work with regional and rural country, Victorian communities to document some of their experiences, across what has obviously been quite an unprecedented year for all Victorians, and globally for everyone," Ms Burton said.
"Particularly country Victorians coming off the back of the extreme situation in a persistent drought people have had to deal with, and then running into what was the global pandemic. So we were able to commission these four photographers as a pilot project.
"What we're trying to do this year through the fundraising appeal is to extend that project, to commission, another five photographers to work in other regions that we weren't able to cover, in part with the pilot project, but also to extend it into oral histories as well.
"So we'd like to commission professionals oral historians to interview and speak with some of the community that we capture in the photographs, to find out their experiences so their voices are really represented in the collection first-hand, because we collect those oral histories alongside photographic material."
Public donations towards Focus on country Victoria will fund the photographers and researchers, who will each unearth eight individual community stories, SLV says, including those of emergency service workers, healthcare workers, park rangers, teachers and education staff, community leaders, agricultural and local industry workers, shopkeepers, delivery drivers, and tourism operators.
Donations can be made at the State Library's website, slv.vic.gov.au
