The Invisible Farmer

Securing the history of Australian farming women

08 June 2016

Catherine Forge and Liza Dale-Hallett

Museum Victoria’s Invisible Farmer Project is an ambitious project that seeks to redress the ongoing invisibility of Australian farm women in cultural, historical and contemporary narratives. The Project initially kicked off in 2015 with funding from the McCoy Seed Fund, and has since been awarded an ARC Linkage grant that will allow for continued research, exploration and documentation of the complex contributions of women to agricultural production across Australia.

Speakers

Catherine Forge was Curator of the Invisible Farmer Project in 2015 and wrote her history honours thesis on the Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Collection in 2007. She has since worked as a Research Associate on the Collection as well as conducting oral history interviews with rural women across Victoria.

Liza Dale-Hallett is Senior Curator of Sustainable Futures at Museum Victoria. She has been actively involved in preserving the history of farming women since the 1980s and was instrumental in establishing the Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Collection at Museum Victoria in the early 2000s.