Uncurated

In 1984, University of Melbourne Dean of Arts and renowned historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey delivered a speech in Warrnambool, Victoria, criticising the pace of Asian immigration. His comments made headlines in newspapers and sparked outrage among students, who accused him of racism. They protested and picketed his lectures. Yet, the university seems to have left little record of these events....

Step back into the 1970s to hear the forgotten story of Terry Stokes, a 26-year-old UniMelb postgrad who was arrested for kissing his boyfriend in public. As the title suggests, it wasn’t just any kiss; it was The Kiss That Started a Protest. Deep in the university’s archives is a confidential, restricted file meant only for the Vice-Chancellor and a select few others, but now the worl...

"Child Care Now." Three simple words that sparked one of the most dramatic student protests in the University of Melbourne's history. In 1974, activists occupied council chambers, faced arrest, and challenged powerful university leaders to recognise childcare as a right rather than a personal responsibility. Eva Sementino uncovers a little-known chapter of Australian feminist history that helped r...

Reporter Xinnan Wang traces student activism from a 1961 protest against Australia’s White Australia Policy to a recent campus rally at the University of Melbourne. Along the way, she uncovers the forgotten history of anti-racism movements, immigration reform, and student protest in Australia, while questioning her own assumptions about activism. Interviewees: Andonis Piperoglou James Waghor...

In 1917, three years into World War One, student Guido Baracchi got into trouble with the University administration for publishing articles about Australia’s involvement in the war. This socialist, anti-war, anti-conscription student was seen as a traitor by the staff and other students, and his punishment was being thrown into a lake by his peers. Today, the University of Melbourne still tr...

At the very end of WWII, a group of UniMelb students threw eggs and other ingredients at the then Minister for War Organisation of Industry, John Dedman. The suit he wore, designed to cut corners and save fabric for the war effort, ironically became the target of an anti-rationing and conscription protest that day. Several Australian politicians have been egged since then, it might be worth asking...

From the stonemasons who fought for an eight-hour workday at the University of Melbourne in 1856 to today’s staff strike at our university, this episode will explore 170 years of labour rights activism in Australia. A famous American singer and civil rights activist, Paul Robertson, will take us back to the 1960s and the power of labour rights protest. But what has changed over the past 170...

The porticoes, lawns and classrooms of the University of Melbourne have seen their fair share of unrest, spanning from eggings to dunkings through protest marches, barricades and occupations.  Some of the most consequential protests in Australian history took place on this campus.  In this new season, students from the Centre from Advancing Journalism explore the university's unruly past...

The University of Melbourne's involvement in the testing of atomic bombs in South Australia is not that well known.  Yet it had a massive impact on the Indigenous people living there, with health impacts that were felt for decades.  University academics were enlisted to ensure the safety nuclear blasts at Maralinga and Emu Field. But how good of a job did they really do?  Interviewe...

For many international students, International House is more than just a place to stay—it’s a welcoming oasis in an unfamiliar city. But did you know that the community at International House holds a rich history dating back to 1957? Dive into the history of International House and one of its most cherished traditions: the Great Trike Race. A race that symbolises the spirit of unity at the Interna...

John Medley was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne from 1938 to 1951. But Medley was also a member of the Eugenics Society of Victoria, a group which called for the sterilisation and institutionalisation of minority groups such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, prostitutes and members of the LGBTQI+ community. So why does the university have a building named after him? U...

The Baillieu Library is the largest library here at the University of Melbourne. Walking through the library, the shelves are filled with books on everything from philosophy and history, to science and computing, all from a Western Eurocentric perspective. But the library also holds one of the largest collections of Rare East Asian books and materials in the Southern Hemisphere.  Throughout this e...

The Harry Brookes Allen Museum is one of many collections at the University of Melbourne. The University has collected artefacts that has contributed to a wealth of knowledge that is vital to Melbourne, Australia and the world.  But the way University scholars collected these artefacts was not always done in an ethical way. Reporter Haoyue Deng learns how a rare marsupial mole is the key to the fo...

What would Australia look like if we had monkeys swinging around our cities? In the late 19th Century, a number of associations called “acclimatisation societies” sprung up across Australia with the goal of bringing familiar plants and animals to what the British colonists saw as an impoverished landscape.  This episode explores the massive ecological transformation that shaped what the university...

The Old Quadrangle is one of the most photographed spots on the University of Melbourne campus, with students and tourists alike posing under its iconic archways.  The romantic European architecture feels like you've been transported to the set of Hogwarts, but did you know that the stones used to create this effect were stolen from Indigenous lands in Tasmania?  Reporter Giulia Scenna investigate...

Between the 1800s to1950s, anthropologists at the University of Melbourne were digging up burial sites of First Nations ancestors who had been laid to rest and collecting, rather stealing, their bodies. And while some of these human remains were returned to land and reburied, one collection remained hidden away at the university in a storage room until 2003.  Uncover the true story of The Universi...

On the surface, the University of Melbourne is a historical spectacle – with its grand arches, stone facades, echoing hallways, and the chimes of the old clocktower. But this university is also home to many secrets, from human remains unearthed on university grounds, to its role in nuclear testing on Indigenous lands. In an eight-part series, students from the Centre for Advancing Journalism explo...

A thesis, glass tubes, a bronze plaque. This is the evidence left to remember world-class atmospheric physicist Jean Laby. She was the first woman to achieve a PhD in the School of Physics in 1956. But on a campus that lacks recognition of historically significant women, this prompts the question: how would Laby have been commemorated if she was a man? Jade Murray explores the University of Melbou...

This is a story about an artwork illustrating a Chinese camp in Ballarat, Victoria, depicted by Percy Lindsay. This is a story about a painting that carries within it the joy, tears and fears of Chinese gold miners. This oil canvas is hidden and locked away in a black suitcase at the Ballarat gallery with its paper sketch stored at the University of Melbourne. This week on Uncurated, Caitlin Duan...

For First Nations people, art has been a vehicle to tell personal and universal stories for over 60,000 years. Ngarrindjeri artist Trevor Nickolls’ story is complex, exploring the history of dispossession and loss, and the hope and beauty of finding a way back to knowing. Breaking free of the assumptions and prejudices placed on First Nations artists by white society, his ground-breaking career in...

The thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian Tiger, remains one of Australia’s most identifiable animals despite having gone extinct almost 100 years ago. In its time, it was hunted, mishandled and neglected, yet people are still captivated by it today. They desperately hope the animal still exists in hiding, and one scientist at the University of Melbourne is on the brink of a discovery unlike an...

Our city streets are filled with statues of men who did things, with little permanent reminder of the women who have shaped Australian society. Julia (Bella) Guérin is one of these women. Famous in her time for her achievements as Australia’s first female university graduate and a noted teacher, writer, orator and political organiser, Bella Guérin has been all but forgotten by the history books. T...

An oil painting lost in a storeroom for decades, a dusty student card, a misplaced animal skull; these are some of the objects in the University of Melbourne's twelve museums. Each was forgotten in a different way. Join students from the Centre for Advancing Journalism on a journey of unforgetting as they ask why some objects - or people - are lost from history. And what that says about Australia....

It’s easy to speak of those we remember. But what about those we’ve forgotten? A hank of human hair transports us back to Brighton in 1882 when a musical ingenue by the name of Percy Grainger was born. His fame grew at an exceptional speed… But then disappeared just as quickly. This week on Uncurated, Nell Geraets and Mengjie Cai replace a missing note in Australia’s music...

Art is made to be looked at, to be objectified. But people are not. So what could this mean for those painted onto canvasses that are then flaunted around museums across the world? This week on Uncurated, Yimin Qiang and Angus Thomson venture into Melbourne University’s Arts West to look at 100 women’s faces, all of which were painted by men. Who are these women? And where are all the...