MY WORK - RESEARCH PROJECTS
2020-2023
chinese temples heritage of uralla, tingha and emmaville, Nsw, Australia
Curator and historian
Inaugural project of Our Chinese Past Inc.
Part-funded by NSW 2020 Small Grants Program for Local History and Archives, a funding program administered by the Royal Australian Historical Society on behalf of the NSW Government through the Heritage Council of NSW.
Outcomes of project included:
• Our Chinese Past website
• photographic documentation and digitisation of Chinese temples artefacts in museums in these towns
• translation of inscriptions on these artefacts
• historical and genealogical research on the temples, the extant artefacts from them, and the communities that created and maintained these temples
2002-2004
Images of Chinese in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, 1850-1950
Partner Investigator
Joint project of Chinese Museum (Melbourne), La Trobe University, and Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre.
Funded by Australian Research Council (Linkages program) and the Chinese Museum .
Outcomes of project included:
• Chinese Historical Images in Australia website
• history PhD thesis by Sophie Couchman, ‘In and out of focus: Chinese and photography in Australia, 1870s-1940s’, La Trobe University, 2009.
2000-2003
Studies in Victoria's [Chinese] Goldfield Heritage: the Mount Alexander Diggings, 1851-1901
Partner Investigator
Joint project of University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, Chinese Museum (Melbourne), Parks Victoria and the Mt Alexander Diggings Committee.
Funded by Australian Research Council (SPIRT program) and the Chinese Museum.
Outcomes of project included:
• history PhD thesis by Keir Reeves, “A Hidden History: The Chinese on the Mount Alexander Diggings, Central Victoria, 1851-1901”, University of Melbourne, 2005
• an archaeological investigation by Zvonka Stanin, including a survey of Vaughn and the Lower Loddon area, and excavations of a Chinese house site at Butcher’s Gully and market gardens on the Loddon River terraces. For details see:
• Zvonka Stanin, Preliminary Archaeological Investigation of Chinese Residential Sites on the Mt Alexander Diggings, report submitted to Heritage Victoria and Parks Victoria, Melbourne, 2004.
• Zvonka Stanin, ‘From Li Chun to Yong Kit: A Market Garden on the Loddon, 1851-1912’, Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol.6, 2004, pp.15-34.
1996-2000
Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation Project
Project Co-director
Joint project of La Trobe University, Chinese Museum (Melbourne) and Shanghai East China Normal University.
Funded by the Australian Centenary of Federation Committee.
Outcomes of project included:
• Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation website
• Index to the Tung Wah newspaper (Sydney, 1898-1936)
• The Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation Project conference, Melbourne, 2000.
• Sophie Couchman, John Fitzgerald and Paul Macgregor (eds), After the Rush: Regulation, Participation and Chinese Communities in Australia 1860-1940, Special edition of Otherland Literary Journal, No. 9, Kingsbury, Victoria, 2004.
• Exhibition: A Chinese Reformer at the Birth of a Nation: Liang Qichao and the Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation, which toured to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney, from 2000-2003. Curated by Paul Macgregor.
1994-2000
Thematic Survey of Sites of Chinese Australian History
Project Manager
Project of Chinese Museum (Melbourne)
Funded by Australian Heritage Commission’s National Estate program.
Outcomes of project included:
• Justin McCarthy, Gordon Grimwade and Peter Bell, Database of Sites of Chinese Australian History, and overview history of Chinese in Australia, report submitted to Australian Heritage Commission, 1999.
• Tracking the Dragon: A guide for finding and assessing Chinese Australian heritage places, Australian Heritage Commission, 2002. Download pdf.
1993-1995
Australia-China Oral History Project
Project Manager and oral historian
Joint project of Chinese Museum (Melbourne), Australia-China Council and National Library of Australia.
Funded by Australia-China Council.
Outcomes of project were:
- Interviews with Australians living in China and Chinese-Australians born in Australia before WWII, archived at the National Library of Australia (http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn2840679), and the Chinese Museum.