The National Library, in conjunction with the National Folk Festival, is pleased to announce Ms Martie Lowenstein as the 2023 National Folk Fellow.
This Fellowship offers a unique opportunity for the recipient to discover and explore original collected material at the Library for use in their own artistic work.
Recipient
Ms Martie Lowenstein
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What Wendy Found – The Story of the 1969 Outback 'Australian Folklore Expedition'
This project will highlight Wendy Lowenstein’s significant contribution to the development of the folk movement in Australia. Starting with a documentary film that tells the story of Wendy’s family’s year-long oral history collecting trip in 1969, it morphs directly into a live stage presentation of bushmen telling yarns collected from Wendy’s recordings. The project combines the skills of both Martie Lowenstein as the researcher and Richard Lowenstein as a professional documentary film maker. As Wendy Lowenstein’s children, Martie and Richard spent their early years immersed daily in Australian folk-music and oral history as their mother recorded over 1200 interviews, over 500 of which are now held by the National Library of Australia
Thank you
The annual National Folk Fellowship is offered jointly by the National Library of Australia and the National Folk Festival. The National Library thanks all applicants for the 2023 Fellowship, and encourages unsuccessful applicants to apply for the next program.
About
Since 2004 the National Folk Fellowship has supported twenty established and emerging folk practitioners to further their work using the Library’s collections, including musicians, singers, dancers, poets, performance artists and performers.
Recipients of the National Folk Fellowship receive a stipend of $8,000, special and supported access to the collections, and access to the National Library sound recording studios for up to 30 hours over their residency. Any recordings arising from the project will be acquired for the National Library’s Oral History and Folklore collection, with the Fellowship resulting in a performance at the 2023 National Folk Festival.
