Connecting Indigenous Community Photographies: a transnational case study. The project aims to conduct the first transnational comparison of Indigenous community-controlled photography, exploring Indigenous peoples’ ways of seeing and documenting their worlds. The project seeks to significantly advance Australian and global understanding of Indigenous vernacular photography through investigating formerly unexplored private collections of images created by Indigenous photographers during the mid ....Connecting Indigenous Community Photographies: a transnational case study. The project aims to conduct the first transnational comparison of Indigenous community-controlled photography, exploring Indigenous peoples’ ways of seeing and documenting their worlds. The project seeks to significantly advance Australian and global understanding of Indigenous vernacular photography through investigating formerly unexplored private collections of images created by Indigenous photographers during the mid 20th Century in four communities across three countries. One of the outcomes of the project is a nuanced visual history that cannot be excavated from other sources. The benefits of this project include public exhibitions, a book, symposiums, and a scholarly anthology that encourages the public’s connection with the past.Read moreRead less
Orientalism of the Mediterranean shore: art and place from Tunis to Marseille. This project focuses on new ways of thinking about how art links North Africa and Europe. Researching the images of Tunis, Algiers, Granada and Marseille in painting and photography (between 1880-1950) will lead to high-level outputs; beginning with a 2014 exhibition on Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter as Orientalists.
“The Complete Craze”: Women’s Photography and Colonial Modernity in the Asia-Pacific, 1860-1930. To date there has been no sustained research into the photography produced by women in the Asia-Pacific region in the late colonial era even though much of it was aesthetically sophisticated and innovative. Combining historical research with postcolonial and gender theory, this project critically examines a large body of images by women photographers working across the region. It identifies the facto ....“The Complete Craze”: Women’s Photography and Colonial Modernity in the Asia-Pacific, 1860-1930. To date there has been no sustained research into the photography produced by women in the Asia-Pacific region in the late colonial era even though much of it was aesthetically sophisticated and innovative. Combining historical research with postcolonial and gender theory, this project critically examines a large body of images by women photographers working across the region. It identifies the factors enabling these women to be examined as a group, investigates their subject matter, techniques and styles, and establishes what was exciting and new, as well as conventional, about their methods. It also shows how their artworks both reflected and contributed to the region’s burgeoning modernity. Read moreRead less
Mnemoscape: a study of digital lifelog images as memory cues. This project aims to identify the qualities that make digital ‘lifelog’ photographs effective memory cues, and to establish how this new form of automatic photography may transform understandings of the relationship between images and memory. Applying insights from visual arts and interactive media to the study of episodic or ‘autobiographical memory’, the project aims to deliver comprehensive analysis of lifelog images and the condit ....Mnemoscape: a study of digital lifelog images as memory cues. This project aims to identify the qualities that make digital ‘lifelog’ photographs effective memory cues, and to establish how this new form of automatic photography may transform understandings of the relationship between images and memory. Applying insights from visual arts and interactive media to the study of episodic or ‘autobiographical memory’, the project aims to deliver comprehensive analysis of lifelog images and the conditions under which these photographs trigger vivid remembering. The project plans to derive a data-driven visualisation from its experimental study, advancing both the representation of visual autobiographical memory and practical understanding of image-based retrieval cues.Read moreRead less
Envisaging Citizenship: Australian Histories and Global Connections. This project aims to investigate the ways that visual images have defined, contested and advanced ideas of Australian citizenship and rights from European settlement to the present. Responding to the lack of a shared mainstream understanding of Australian citizenship, it looks beyond legal definitions to explore cultural and especially visual views of citizenship over time. Through collaboration with museum, media and education ....Envisaging Citizenship: Australian Histories and Global Connections. This project aims to investigate the ways that visual images have defined, contested and advanced ideas of Australian citizenship and rights from European settlement to the present. Responding to the lack of a shared mainstream understanding of Australian citizenship, it looks beyond legal definitions to explore cultural and especially visual views of citizenship over time. Through collaboration with museum, media and education sectors, it will provide a forward-looking and accessible public history, and utilise the potential of images to broaden contemporary debates about citizenship. Expected outcomes include a better public understanding of the pathways to citizenship, and enhanced engagement with Australian values and identity.Read moreRead less
Heritage in the limelight: the magic lantern in Australia and the world. The project aims to discover and analyse the large number of glass magic lantern slides that remain under-used in our public collections. International scholarship has recently begun to show that lantern slide shows were a ubiquitous, globalised and formative cultural experience. The project aims to explore the international reach and diversity of this globalised modernist apparatus from the Australian perspective. It plans ....Heritage in the limelight: the magic lantern in Australia and the world. The project aims to discover and analyse the large number of glass magic lantern slides that remain under-used in our public collections. International scholarship has recently begun to show that lantern slide shows were a ubiquitous, globalised and formative cultural experience. The project aims to explore the international reach and diversity of this globalised modernist apparatus from the Australian perspective. It plans to understand how diverse audiences affectively experienced these powerful forms of early media, and to develop ways for today’s Australians to re-experience their magic, invigorating and expanding our cultural heritage.Read moreRead less
Experiencing space: sensory encounters from Baroque Rome to neo-baroque Las Vegas. This project focuses on the historical baroque and the neo-baroque and the relationship between them. The aim of the project is to apply a new methodology to the study of baroque and neo-baroque cultures, one grounded in sensory and spatial approaches. The primary case studies will be the cities of Rome and Las Vegas, two cities that are paradigmatic of the baroque and the neo-baroque. Whereas for theorists such a ....Experiencing space: sensory encounters from Baroque Rome to neo-baroque Las Vegas. This project focuses on the historical baroque and the neo-baroque and the relationship between them. The aim of the project is to apply a new methodology to the study of baroque and neo-baroque cultures, one grounded in sensory and spatial approaches. The primary case studies will be the cities of Rome and Las Vegas, two cities that are paradigmatic of the baroque and the neo-baroque. Whereas for theorists such as Jean Baudrillard argue that Las Vegas embodies the postmodern world in excess, this project will instead argue that it is emblematic of the return of a baroque aesthetics that has been nurtured by consumer culture, multi-media conglomeration and digital technology.Read moreRead less
Pacific Exposures: Australian and Japanese Photographic Connections Since the Late Nineteenth Century. This project reveals the historical importance of photography as a medium of cultural connection between Australia and Japan. Amateurs and professionals from both countries have long used their cameras as interpretive instruments to define the foreign encounter. Decades before the rupture of the Pacific War of 1941-45, travelling photographers helped bridge the cultural and geographical distanc ....Pacific Exposures: Australian and Japanese Photographic Connections Since the Late Nineteenth Century. This project reveals the historical importance of photography as a medium of cultural connection between Australia and Japan. Amateurs and professionals from both countries have long used their cameras as interpretive instruments to define the foreign encounter. Decades before the rupture of the Pacific War of 1941-45, travelling photographers helped bridge the cultural and geographical distance between Australia and Japan. In the aftermath of military conflict, and since the normalisation of bilateral relations in the 1950s, photography has facilitated mutual understanding, diplomacy and trade. The project examines photography’s role in their shared cultural history, and how it continues to shape Australia’s engagement with Japan today.Read moreRead less
Artists as collectors of Islamic Art, 1850-1910. The aim of this project is to generate a new understanding of patterns of collecting and interpreting the arts of the near east through the first cross-cultural comparative study of Ottoman and Orientalist artists as collectors in the 19th century. By mapping transcultural networks of artists, dealers and collectors traversing Ottoman, Russian, Polish, French and British cultures, this study reveals international exchanges that have been occluded ....Artists as collectors of Islamic Art, 1850-1910. The aim of this project is to generate a new understanding of patterns of collecting and interpreting the arts of the near east through the first cross-cultural comparative study of Ottoman and Orientalist artists as collectors in the 19th century. By mapping transcultural networks of artists, dealers and collectors traversing Ottoman, Russian, Polish, French and British cultures, this study reveals international exchanges that have been occluded by studies of Orientalism narrowly focused around single national histories. This project reveals the myriad ways treasures from the Islamic world were being transformed in the 19th century from their prior local religious and cultural functions into exoticism in the West and cultural patrimony in the East.Read moreRead less
Empathy and evolution: the history of emotions and the literary and visual representation of animals. A study of emotions in human and animals is a key area of contemporary research in both the sciences and humanities. It has crucial implications for our future. This project will investigate how humans have represented the emotions in literary and visual discourses from the eighteenth-century to the present.