Dr Tony Moore receives award for documentary
Marcus Clarke, aged 20
Lovers of history and literature will get to experience the natural life of prolific author Marcus Clarke following the State Library of Victoria’s recent Creative Fellowships announcement.
Dr Tony Moore, Director, National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University received an Honorary Creative Fellowship award for researching and scripting his television documentary, Marcus Clarke: An Unnatural Life.
Dr Moore, who is also a senior lecturer in Communications and Media Studies at Monash and a former documentary maker at the ABC, said he was thrilled to receive the Honorary Creative Fellowship award for his work that explores the life and times of Marcus Clarke (1846-1881), who wrote the 1874 novel, For the Term of His Natural Life.
“The Fellowship Award has provided me with an opportunity to bring this documentary to life. Australians, and indeed Melburnians, will now be able to have a full understanding of what a creative and historically remarkable character Marcus Clarke was.”
Moore’s documentary will take viewers on a journey through Melbourne in the 1860s and 70s, highlighting Clarke’s role in the emergence of Australian literary culture and the rapid expansion of modern urban journalism.
“This is the story of Clarke’s privileged childhood, exposed to the dandies of London society, immigration by tall ship, despair at exile in the antipodes transformed to journalistic and artistic triumph, then political radicalism and transgression, ending in personal scandal and ostracism.”
“The State Library is an important part of Clarke’s story as he was once on its staff. The Library includes examples of his writings, both published and unpublished, as well as holding the most extensive collection of images of colonial Melbourne of the 1860s, 70s and 80s.”
“This Award will assist with my research not only into Clarke’s writings, but of images that will help realise a period prior to motion picture technology by drawing on the Library’s collections to illustrate the cityscape of mid to late nineteenth century Melbourne,” said Dr Moore.
The Creative Fellowship program fosters the creation of new works based on research using the State Library’s collections.
Since 2003, the State Library of Victoria’s Creative Fellowship program has supported over 90 Australian writers, academics, artists, composers and researchers, allowing them to undertake extended periods of concentrated work with State Library collections. Fellows are also provided with offices within the Library to work on their projects.
The State Library Creative Fellowships are funded through a grant from the State Library Foundation. They are awarded by the Library Board of Victoria on the recommendation of the Creative Fellowships Committee.
Marcus Clarke: An Unnatural Life is to be produced by Maggie Miles, whose credits include Van Diemen’s Land and other partners include the Heritage Council of Victoria.