Culture and Creativity Seminar Series

Moderator: Nicole Curato

Ella Barclay – Visualising Messy Connectivity in Contemporary Art

This talk provides an overview of her current research, including her recent institutional solo exhibition Unkempt Cognition at Canberra Contemporary Art Space and her research as a 2024 fellow at ZK/U: The Centre of Art and Urbanistics, Berlin. Ella’s work engages with thematics of agency and fatigue in a 21st Century connected landscape.

This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to Presentation_EllaBarclay.pptx

Caroline Fisher – Young People, Internet and News Avoidance

More than two-thirds of Australians actively avoid the mainstream news, higher than in many other countries. News avoidance is particularly high among Gen Z and Y, who have the lowest interest in mainstream news and feel the most ‘worn out’ by it. This sense of fatigue is strongly linked to the use of social media and feeling unable to avoid unwanted news in their feeds. Drawing on ten years of news consumption data and qualitative research, this presentation examines these news avoidance trends among young Australians in the context of an everchanging hybrid media landscape.

This presentation was accompanied by slides. To view the slides head to Presentation_CarolineFisher.pptx

During a Work Integrated Learning (WIL) internship, Grace had the opportunity to catalogue the UC FAD Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Artefact Teaching Collection (the Collection). She identified challenges such as limited digital access, preservation issues, and ethical considerations. Encountering these issues first-hand, Grace identified the need for a more robust digital catalogue system. These experiences inspired her to develop an honours research project focused on enhancing access to the Collection through a digitalised catalogue. By comparing a range of catalogue interfaces, Grace aims to propose the most effective solution, emphasising ethical research principles for an Indigenous collection. The presentation takes the audience on a journey

through Grace’s experience in Indigenous studies, and working with the collection, considering her position as a non-Indigenous researcher, highlighting how digitisation can enhance the accessibility and visibility of the collection for university audiences, including students, researchers, staff, and future curators.

Bio

Grace Zhang is a cultural heritage student currently doing an Honours research project at the University of Canberra. With a strong foundation in museum studies and psychology, she recently graduated with a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science in Psychology from UC. Grace’s current research focuses on digitising the UC FAD Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Artefact Teaching Collection (the Collection), aiming to propose a comprehensive catalogue as a first step towards future implementation and preservation. Her passion lies in bridging the gap between cultural heritage and digital innovation to enhance accessibility and scholarly discourse.

Denise Thwaites is a curator, writer and researcher of British and Uyghur descent, who lives and works on unceded Ngunnawal and Ngambri country. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts at the University of Canberra, where her research focuses on contemporary cultural economies. Denise was awarded her PhD in Aesthetics through The University of New South Wales (Australia) and l’Université Paris 8 (France), before joining UNSW iCinema Research Centre as a Postdoctoral Fellow. She has worked in the contemporary arts sector at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Australia Council for the Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (all Sydney), while also co-curating independent projects for the Institute of Network Cultures (Amsterdam), Artspace (Sydney), This Is Not Art Festival (Newcastle), New Beginnings Refugee Culture and Arts Festival (Sydney), and Next Wave Festival (Melbourne). Her research has been published in Cordite Poetry Review, Meniscus Literary Journal, Runway Journal of Experimental Art, Performance Paradigm, Artlink, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, Culture, Theory and Critique and Derrida Today.

Wendy Somerville is a Jerrinja woman who teaches in the Culture and Heritage degree at the University of Canberra (UC). She is the inaugural First Nations Post-Graduate Research Fellow in the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research. She researches with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts and Artefact Teaching Collection, UC.

Embedding First Nations perspectives in teaching and research is a step towards valuing Indigenous knowledges alongside western knowledges in the academy. Indigenous knowledges and materials held in universities are subject to legal rights (copyright, ownership, trademarks and patents) and moral rights (Indigenous cultural and intellectual property).

How do we navigate the tension between these two sometimes incommensurate rights frameworks? This presentation is a brief introduction to citation justice and Traditional Knowledge labels, two tools for honouring Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP) rights while working with Indigenous knowledges in the academy.

Bio

Dr. Rose Barrowcliffe is a Butchulla postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Critical Indigenous Studies at Macquarie University, a member of the Global Centre for Indigenous Futures and the ENRICH Global Co-Chair for 2023-24. Rose is the inaugural First Nations Archives Advisor to the Queensland State Archives. Rose’s work and research examines the representation of Indigenous peoples and the enactment of Indigenous rights in collecting institutions.