Asian Art Dialogue brings together a group of graduate researchers across the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation and the Asia Institute broadly engaged in the study of Asian art and culture, to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue, collaboration and collegiality.
This website is a digital resource hub for students and the wider scholarly community interested in the study of Asian art and culture. It hosts a wide range of existing scholarship and resources on Asian Art, particularly those produced within the University, and provides a space for professional development and networking.
Throughout the year, Asian Art Dialogue convenes a diverse program of forums, discussions, panel events and workshops. Welcoming speakers with a broad range of expertise, the program aims to facilitate dialogue across fields of visual art, art conservation, literature and screen and culture to offer a wide range of perspectives on Asian art and culture.
If you are interested in joining our events, or would like more information about AAD’s activities please contact Genevieve Trail: g.trail@student.unimelb.edu.au.
Asian Art Dialogue respectfully acknowledges the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the sovereign custodians of the land upon which we work and create. We acknowledge their ongoing connection to land, water and country and pay our respects to their Elders past and present.
About
Asian Art Dialogue (AAD) began in 2016 following a conversation between Associate Professor Claire Roberts and Carol Que, then an Honours student, about the need for Asian art history related activity in the absence of dedicated art history subjects on offer in the School of Culture and Communication.
Early events, co-hosted by AAD and the Art History Student Society include: ‘Why Weiwei’; ‘Common Ground: Indigenous Australia and the Art of Zhu Xiaoping’; ‘Modern Brushstrokes: A Visual investigation of Two Paintings by Ding Yanyong’, and ‘Ding Yanyong’s Guangzhou/Hong Kong’, seminars and public lectures that involved Carol Yinghua Lu, Claire Roberts, Zhou Xiaoping, Olivia Meehan and Cai Tao.
In 2018, following the re-establishment of the teaching of Asian art history at the University of Melbourne, AAD initiated an annual postgraduate workshop, Asian Art Research Now. Now in its fourth consecutive year, the workshop aims to provide a regular opportunity for informal research sharing and networking amongst postgraduate students and ECRs working at the University of Melbourne and other Australian universities. In 2021 the workshop was convened by the Australasian Network for Asian Art (an4aa) supported by AAD and Asian Art Research (AAR) at the University of Melbourne and Asia: Innovation and Transformation at the Australian National University.
Since 2020, with a critical mass of postgraduate students engaged in the study of Asian Art and culture at the University of Melbourne, AAD has been able to grow and strengthen its programming, collaborating with colleagues from around Australia and internationally.
Asian Art Dialogue is supported by of Asian Art Research (AAR), the Art History and Curatorship Program and the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, as well as the Australasian Network for Asian Art (an4aa).
CURRENT
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Shiqiu Liu
PhD Candidate, Art History
School of Culture and Communication -
Laurence Marvin Castillo
PhD Candidate, Asia Institute
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Genevieve Trail
PhD Candidate, Art History
School of Culture and Communication -
Duncan Caillard
PhD Candidate, Screen and Cultural Studies
School of Culture and Communication -
Chloe Ho
PhD Candidate, Art History
School of Culture and Communication -
Brandon K. Liew
PhD Candidate, Literary Studies
School of Culture and Communication
brandonl@student.unimelb.edu.au -
Soo-Min Shim
PhD Candidate, Art History
School of Art & Design, ANU -
Chris Parkinson
PhD Candidate, Visual Art
Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne
ALUMNI
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Dr Carol Yinghua Lu
Early career researcher;
Director, Inside-Out Museum, Beijing -
Yvette Dal Pozzo
Director, Goulburn Regional Art Gallery
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Ella Shi
Digital and Communications Officer, Migrant Workers Centre
Graduate, Master of Art Curatorship
CURRENT GRADUATE RESEARCHERS, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
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Alison Eggletons
PhD Candidate, School of Art, RMIT University
Southeast Asian women’s photography practice and curation in Australia
Alison’s research focuses on public gallery curatorial models and exhibitions as platforms for addressing the representation of gender, race, and identity. -
Bianca Winataputri
PhD Candidate, Art History and Theory Program, Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Monash University
Southeast Asia Imaginary: Contemporary Southeast Asian Art Exhibitions from 1990s to present
Over the past three decades, exhibiting and collecting Southeast Asian contemporary art has increasingly become more prominent with the rising number of international exhibitions, biennales, art fairs and, most recently, with the opening of new museums and galleries within the Southeast Asian region. This trend in collecting and exhibiting Southeast Asian contemporary art produces different social, historical and geopolitical narratives of the region thus prompting the questions: Where is Southeast Asian contemporary art? Where is Southeast Asia in exhibitions and collections of (global) contemporary art? How do relevant collecting and exhibition-making practices seek to position Southeast Asia within the region and the global art world? Bianca’s research argues that there are distinct objectives in exhibiting and collecting contemporary Southeast Asian art locally, regionally, and internationally that critically impact the narratives, representations and understandings produced of the region. This argument will be approached through the changing context and theories of regionalism, as well as the global and cosmopolitan dimensions of contemporary art.
Contact bianca.winataputri@monash.edu -
Bic Tieu
PhD Candidate, Curatorial Practice, Monash University Art, Design and Architecture
Objects In-between: Designing a Visual Language for Intercultural Spaces and Dialogues
My research draws from my experiences, identity and my migration to Australia and the
intercultural connections of life living between the eastern and western cultural spheres. I
acknowledge the reality that exists ‘in-between’ that informs my work as an expression for a visual and material framework to investigate ongoing interest and belief in the value of the shared
experience. By investigation into new kinds of cultural objects that are representative of the hybrid
cultures, life experiences and identity represented in the diverse cultures in Australia, I revel in
material expressed in object-based forms to create better understanding of cultural diversity,
decolonisation and the Asia Australia context.
Contact @bictieustudio @bictieustudio_journal -
Biljana Ciric
PhD Candidate, Curatorial Practice, Monash University Art, Design and Architecture
As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future
A long-term project and research inquiry that reflects on the Belt and Road Initiative and how it will alter the aesthetics and practices of everyday life in different local contexts.
Contact: biljana.ciric@monash.edu. -
Chloe Ho
PhD Candidate, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne
Performance and Installation Art in Singapore, 1990-present
Chloe’s current research project looks at performance and installation art and other
artistic, social and political events in Singapore from the late 1980s to the present in relation to Western structures of knowledge.
Contact: ho5@student.unimelb.edu.au -
Chris Parkinson
PhD Candidate, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne
A Temporary Landing Place
Chris Parkinson’s research explores the spheres of engagement that reveal a specific field of regional, collective practice between Yogyakarta, Indonesia and Dili, Timor-Leste and their visual and spatial politics and practices of community building.
Contact: chriscbp@unimelb.edu.au -
Diana Tay
PhD Candidate, Grimwade Centre of Cultural Materials Conservation University of Melbourne
Understanding Singaporean easel paintings through data analysis
Diana’s PhD research explores a material perspective of Singaporean art history through the technical examination of modern oil paintings (1940s – 1980s) by Cheong Soo Pieng and Georgette Chen.
Contact: tayd@student.unimelb.edu.au -
Eliza O’Donnell
PhD Candidate, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts; Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, University of Melbourne
The Painting is Broken: Understanding issues of authenticity and art attribution in contemporary Indonesia
The circulation of counterfeit paintings in Indonesia’s art centres remains, as it does across the globe, a sensitive issue that distorts the cultural narrative and threatens the intellectual property of artists and their legacy. Using an interdisciplinary methodology grounded in cross-cultural engagement, technical art history and materials analysis, this thesis examines issues of authorship through the various ways authenticity and art attribution are understood and practiced in Java’s art centres of Yogyakarta, Jakarta and Bandung, Indonesia.
Contact: e.o’donnell2@student.unimelb.edu.au -
Gadis Fitriana Putri
MA Candidate, Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, University of Melbourne
Art Materials Availability in 20th century Southeast Asia: Japan-occupied Indonesia, 1942-45
Gadis’ thesis investigates of the factors surrounding the availability (types, means of supply, and usage) of paintings materials in Indonesia during the Second World War. The study aims to fill the gap in technical art history of Western-influenced modern painting practices in the region from the perspective of materiality.
Contact: putrig@student.unimelb.edu.au -
Genevieve Trail
PhD Candidate, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne
The development of interdisciplinary performance, installation, and environmental art, Hong Kong, 1970-1989
Between 1970 and 1989, Hong Kong experienced a burst of new artistic energy, experimentation and innovation, as large numbers of artists began to engage in new practices of performance, environmental and installation art. This research project aims to provide a detailed account of Hong Kong’s new art of 1970-1989; to apprehend the factors influencing their emergence, and to give agency to the formal motivations of artists over this period.
Contact: gtrail@student.unimelb.edu.au -
Greg Doyle
PhD Candidate, School of Languages and Cultures, University of Sydney
Indonesian Contemporary Art in Australia 1975-2019
Indonesian contemporary art is achieving significant global recognition including in Australian institutions and collections. However, traditional art historical explanations of its importance emphasise the creative brilliance of the individual artist at the expense of the social relations in which the artist is embedded. The potential relationship between artist and audience is always mediated by a range of agents including curators, collectors, gallerists, administrators, philanthropic donors, academics, critics and others. The art that we observe in our institutions reflects not just the intentionality of the artist but the values and interests of all these mediating agents. Art is not so much created as produced or manufactured within complex networks governed by artistic conventions, commercial realities and political ambitions. I reconstruct the network producing contemporary Indonesian art within Australia using a combination of ethnography and formal quantitative social network analysis. In doing so I explore how Indonesian art is valued within Australia and the mechanisms through which certain artists achieve prominence. I find that curators and collectors frequently balance the aesthetic value of Indonesian art with more prosaic and pragmatic considerations including personal friendships and connections within the art world. At the same time, I find that while art must possess sufficiently attractive formal qualities, the artist must also be amenable to institutional and curatorial imperatives and conform to the normative conventions of the contemporary art world.
Contact: Greg.doyle@sydney.edu.au -
Huishu Zhang
PhD Candidate, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts; Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation, University of Melbourne
Protection strategies for earthen structure and remains in site museums in central China
This research project attempts to answer the question, “what shapes appropriate conservation strategies within a certain cultural and physical environment?” It investigates the best and good (when the best is not possible) practices in terms of policy, physical and chemical protection measures for soil-based built structures and cultural remains in site museums in central China, and explores the relation between cultural traditions and professionalism in conservation practices.
Contact: huishuz@student.unimelb.edu.au -
Jasmin Stephens
PhD Candidate, UNSW Sydney
Investigating the possibilities of data sharing between Sydney Culture Network and Southeast Asian colleagues
Contact: jasm.step@gmail.com -
Ken Hughes-Parry
PhD Candidate, School of Art, RMIT University
Towards Nothing: Photographing Through the Lens of Zen Intuition
Towards Nothing explores the intersection between Zen, photography, and walking. The project utilises the act of walking, alongside a Zen based intuition, to shift the focus of photography away from the resulting images towards the process of photographing itself, positing the importance of immersion and a deep connection to the moments experienced.
Contact: ken.hughesparry@rmit.edu.au -
Lucie Folan
PhD Candidate, Centre for Art History and Theory, Australian National University
Jain Pilgrimage Art
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Luise Guest
PhD Candidate, UNSW Art & Design
Contemporary Chinese art history and gender
This research is focused on issues of gender and national identity in the work of four female artists in/from China. -
Paul Northam
PhD Candidate, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University
The Principle of Emptiness: the Place of Nishida Kitarō in the Trajectory of Twentieth Century Art
The influence of Eastern thought on the trajectory of twentieth century art remains largely unacknowledged. This project investigates the principle of śūnyatā, (emptiness), familiar to Taoist, Hindu, and Buddhist thought, and how the pioneering work of Japanese philosopher Nishida Kitarō changed the course of contemporary art practice, both in Japan and the West, by interpreting and defining the meontology of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy with the intention of making Zen intelligible to the West. To elucidate the radical transformation of the vocabulary and language of visual art from the early twentieth century, the project documents the development of a practice methodology informed by Nishida’s tetsugaku.
Contact: P.Northam@latrobe.edu.au -
Pia Johnson
PhD Candidate, School of Art, RMIT University
Being Eurasian: Negotiating Identity through Photography and Performativity
A practice-led photographic research project that explores how negotiating Eurasian identity through an autoethnographic lens can contribute to the increasingly vexed conversations and studies about cultural identity and allegiance in Australia today. -
Priyanka Jain
PhD Candidate, School of Art, RMIT University
Contemporizing Picture Recitation
Picture recitation is a form of prosimetric storytelling which uses a visual artifact. Various forms of picture recitation traditions have existed in India and Asia in the past but are almost extinct today. My practice led research will propose methods for the revival of this art form through composition of new narratives, visual art studio practice and performance. Fiction (composed from research in Neuroscience and Microbiology) recited as contemporary spoken word poetry with simultaneous depiction of illustrations executed on traditional picture recitation props such as scroll paintings and Kaavads, aims to create a new form of performative storytelling. -
Shiqiu Liu
PhD Candidate, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne
Coming to Cathay: Foreign Influence on Art in Mongol Yuan China
This research focuses on art of Yuan China and its adaptation and interaction with other cultures in the Eurasian continent.
Contact: shiqiul@student.unimelb.edu.au -
Soo-Min Shim
PhD Candidate, Centre for Art History and Theory, Australian National University
The Gyopo Gap: Contemporary Korean-Australian Art
Soo-Min’s research studies the artistic, cultural and social impact of diasporic, expatriate and immigrant Korean artists from and within the Anglophone West, with a focus on Australia and New Zealand. This thesis addresses the gap in Asian-Australian literature on the Korean community, also known as gyopo, by examining how Korean-Australian artists construct new ontologies and subjectivities that contest monolithic definitions of Korean and Australian art. Discussions within this thesis analyse the chronology of Korea and Australia’s cultural and artistic engagement to illustrate the significance of Korean-Australian artists who problematise the role of art in figuring the nation.
Contact: Soo-Min.Shim@anu.edu.au -
Thuy Tran Thi Thu
PhD Candidate, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne and School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, University of Manchester
UNESCO and the global mobility of cultural policies
Thuy’s research focuses on UNESCO and the global mobility of policy knowledge of cultural and creative industries. Her case studies are from Vietnam and Rwanda.
Contact: ttranthithu@student.unimelb.edu.au -
Wilson Yeung Chun Wai
PhD Candidate, School of Architecture and Design, RMIT University
Curating In-Between
Wilson’s special interest lies in collective curatorial practices and Asian contemporary art in an Australian context. His practice-based research Curating In-Between focuses on exploring the role of curators and curatorial practices in order to develop collective curatorial strategies and frameworks. This research articulates curatorial practice that interrogates the role of curators in facilitating cross-cultural collaborations as a ‘cultural collaborator’.
Contact: chun.wai.yeung@student.rmit.edu.au -
Yiwon Park
PhD Candidate, School of Art, RMIT University
Jindgo story:The art of displacement
This research utilises auto-ethnographic reflection on Korean-Australian hybrid identity through the lens of Korean shamanism
Contact: parkyiwon@gmail.com
EARLY CAREER RESEARCHERS, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
Past Events
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Asian Art Dialogue: Art and Activism
This event brought together artists and art collectives from Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong to discuss a range of artistic and curatorial strategies that have emerged across the region at the intersection of art and social responsibility.
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Asian Art Dialogue: Film Preservation and Cultural Memory in Southeast Asia
What is the current state of film preservation in Southeast Asia? What role does film archiving serve in preserving national memory—especially among post-colonies? How do digital technologies impact their work? And what is the future of film preservation in the region?
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Asian Art Dialogue: Malaysian Literature and the Global Literary Market
Malaysian publishers Amir Muhammad, Chong Ton Sin, and Raman Krishnan discuss the state of the Malaysian book trade, and the relationship between Malaysian Literature and the Global Literary Market. This panel discussion is moderated by Brandon Liew.
News + Updates
University of Melbourne — Asian Art Thesis Collection