Mixing it up across Colleges
Discipline areas are no barrier to this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s College Visiting Artist Fellows (VCCAF) who will mix maths and crochet, combine global warming with artworks and unearth photomedia with a dash of archaeology.
Julie Brooke Strange Object, 2012, pencil and gouache on paper 27cm x 27cm
Supported by funding from the Vice-Chancellor, this innovative five year scheme aims to promote collaborative research between disciplines in the University. It is the first of its kind in an Australian University, and demonstrates the high regard in which visual arts and practice-led research is held at ANU.
The following six artists have been announced as the 2014 VCCAF Fellows.
Dr Alison Munro
If you were to explain a mathematical concept, crochet might seem like an unusual choice of medium.
Dr Alison Munro, a recent PhD graduate of the Textiles Workshop will collaborate with Dr Vanessa Robins in the Department of Applied Mathematics to look at ways the forms in crochet can be described via mathematical formulae, and how mathematics might be described in crochet and related textile methods.
Dr Kirsty Darlaston
What gestures do people make when viewing art? How do their hands move when they describe an image? What do their bodies do? Where do their eyes travel?
Dr Kirsty Darlaston’s collaborative research project with Professor Tom Gedeon of the Research School of Computer Science will look at how people interact with art with their eyes, hands and bodies.
Dr Julie Brooke
What is the role of mental imagery in the understanding of abstract mathematical concepts, and how might it be visualised in material form? Dr Julie Brooke will use painting, drawing and the manufacture of 3D objects to find out.
Dr Brook is a recent PhD Graduate from the Painting Workshop and will collaborate with Dr Vanessa Robbins and Professor Tim Senden in the Department of Applied Mathematics.
Sally Blake
Can the visual arts play a role in influencing people’s attitudes towards global warming and other ecological problems?
Textiles Workshop doctoral candidate, Sally Blake, will work with Dr Emina Subasic from the Research School of Psychology on a social psychology experiment which will investigate how visual imagery (specifically artworks) may be used to mobilise people for social change.
Dr Nicola Dickson
Dr Nicola Dickson is a graduate of the Painting Workshop will collaborate with Associate Professor Bronwen Douglas at the School of Culture, History and Language.
Dickson’s studio research will trial and develop a manner of painting to engage with and re-present the artefacts from the Bruni d'Entrecasteaux voyage to Australia and the Pacific in 1791-1794 to a contemporary audience.
Dr Ursula Frederick
Dr Ursula Frederick is combining her background in archaeology with art theory and photomedia. Her broad research interest involves how human beings are shaped by their surroundings and likewise how people create their worlds. She will collaborate with archaeologists Dr Sally Brockwell and Professor Sue O’Connor from the School of Culture, History & Language to explore the possibilities of making art and archaeological knowledge using archaeological materials.