History gets retold with public record Creative in Residence Program

The Victorian Archives Centre, hosted by Public Record Office Victoria, will open Rewind Forward this month at their VAC Gallery in North Melbourne.

Five Melbourne artists were invited to produce artwork inspired by their research into the state government archive as part of the 2025 Public Record Office Victoria Creative in Residence Program.

Public Record Office Victoria is the state’s largest repository of paper archives.

A growing number of artists in Melbourne and Australia are turning to historic archives for inspiration.

The beauty of cursive handwriting and the hard truths that sometimes lie between the pages of paper archives prompt visual and conceptual artists to create works inspired by what they uncover.

This year's artists are Emile Zile, Sam Wallman, Shannon Slee, Susan Fitzgerald and Queer-ways.

Celebrated political comic, Sam Wallman, has found inspiration in the black and white photographs which document a century of maritime labour at the Melbourne docks.

The photographs capture wharfies’ dangerous work building wharves and hoisting cargo and have inspired a series of new illustrations.

The history of train and tram tickets caught the eye of artist Susan Fitzgerald, an illustrator and passionate typographer. Susan playfully celebrates the lost trade of the printing industry and once hand-drawn iconography which adorned tickets.

Other topics cover darker stories that tell of harsh and unfair lives of the people whose paper trail is now documented in the archives.

Visitors to the gallery can see original photographic records alongside the artworks.

The exhibition Rewind Forward is free and open to the public at the Victorian Archives Centre in North Melbourne Monday to Friday and every second and last Saturday until November.

Find more information about the Creative in Residence Program.

Exhibition details:

Rewind Forward (free)
30 May – late November
Victorian Archives Centre Gallery
99 Shiel Street
North Melbourne
Monday to Friday 10 am - 4.30 pm
10 am - 4 pm every second and last Saturday of the month.

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PROV is part of the Department of Government Services.