The natural history of media: aesthetics, nature and communications technology, from telegraphy to Google Earth. This project will show how people have, since the nineteenth century, observed the Earth and experienced nature through media, and how popular communications technologies have been joined with scientific instruments to help us understand changing ecological realities.
Towards an integrated evaluation framework for intrinsic and instrumental benefits of community-based arts. Australia is recognised as a world leader in community-based arts, in which artists and communities collaborate to identify and effect key local issues. Increasingly, these community-based arts projects involve funding from non-arts agencies; for example from the health, justice or urban development sectors. However, existing methods of describing and evaluating their success are generally ....Towards an integrated evaluation framework for intrinsic and instrumental benefits of community-based arts. Australia is recognised as a world leader in community-based arts, in which artists and communities collaborate to identify and effect key local issues. Increasingly, these community-based arts projects involve funding from non-arts agencies; for example from the health, justice or urban development sectors. However, existing methods of describing and evaluating their success are generally ineffective. This research will develop more holistic modes of evaluation, offering benefits to the participants, artists and funders of community-based arts and provide support towards further cross-sector collaborations across all public policy areas, further strengthening Australia's reputation as a leader in fostering active and culturally rich communities.Read moreRead less
In Public / In Focus: Photography, Testimony and the Public Sphere. Photography plays an important but little understood role in the public sphere. Photographs invite viewers to identify with stories, events and others, and the ease with which photographs circulate in print and online makes them ideal for fostering discourse and debate. However, the increasing focus on testimony and witness in contemporary culture has recently altered the way that photography operates in public and raised some s ....In Public / In Focus: Photography, Testimony and the Public Sphere. Photography plays an important but little understood role in the public sphere. Photographs invite viewers to identify with stories, events and others, and the ease with which photographs circulate in print and online makes them ideal for fostering discourse and debate. However, the increasing focus on testimony and witness in contemporary culture has recently altered the way that photography operates in public and raised some significant problems for photography historians regarding the representation of events, others and the past. This project will respond to these problems, and produce a new understanding of the historical, social, cultural and political links between photography and the public sphere today.Read moreRead less
Curating Cities: the social and ecological potential of public art practice. This project researches the contribution of public art to eco-sustainable development, focusing on world’s best practice and potential benefits to Sydney and cities in general. It seeks to establish how the arts can promote environmentally beneficial behaviour change and the development of green infrastructure.
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