Panels convened, conference administration, workshops and symposia
Panels convened
‘The fragmented self: Objects from elsewhere and the search for new identities’, co-convened with Dr Robert Wellington, College Art Association annual conference, Chicago, 15 February 2020.
‘Objects from elsewhere: Transcultural constructions of identity’, co-convened with Dr Robert Wellington, College Art Association annual conference, Chicago, 15 February 2020.
Conference administration
Myanmar Update 2019: Living with Myanmar, Myanmar Research Centre, College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, 15-16 March 2019.
The Myanmar Update is a major venue at which to present cutting-edge scholarship on political, social and economic affairs in Myanmar. Now in its third decade, it is one of only two longstanding, regularly held international conferences on the country, and is alone in routinely publishing papers presented at the conference. It is one of a range of Update conferences held at the ANU on countries across Asia and the Pacific.
The Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools (ACUADS) annual conference, School of Art & Design, Australian National University, Canberra, 28-29 September 2017.
Australian university art and design schools are facing increasing economic and political challenges. The visible impact of these pressures on the sector is already evident and has been widely discussed. Inevitably, the careers of younger and emerging academics will unfold in a very different environment to their older and more established colleagues. Against the backdrop of this profound change it is important to establish and declare the continuing value to Australia of art and design, and therefore the continuing value of university education and research in those disciplines. This conference explored ‘value’ in all of its manifold senses.
Enchanted isles, fatal shores: Living Versailles, Australian National University in collaboration with the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 17-18 March 2017.
On the occasion of Versailles: Treasures from the Palace at the National Gallery of Australia, which brought major works of art from the Palace of Versailles to Canberra, this conference showcased the latest ideas about the lives of past people and objects, as well as the living culture of Versailles today. Staged in Canberra, which like Versailles is a planned capital city, centre of government and culture, this was a unique opportunity to explore the enduring influence and resonance of Versailles, its desires and self-perceptions of modernity, from film to fashion to architecture. Gathering a generation of scholars whose work is shifting our perceptions of the art, culture and life of ancien-régime Versailles and its reception, it was an occasion for fresh and challenging research, and new perspectives on canon-defining works.
The Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (AAANZ) annual conference, Australian National University, Canberra, 1-3 December 2016.
The annual AAANZ conference brings together scholars from Australia, New Zealand, and further afield, attracting around 500 delegates for a two-to-three day program that typically includes over 150 papers, keynote lectures, graduate masterclasses, the AAANZ three-minute thesis competition, round-tables on publishing, and other events. The annual conference is an important event for scholars working within the fields of art history, art theory, curatorship, arts education and arts practice. Each year the program features range of speakers from students to established, senior academics, drawing together a diverse range of people working in universities, museums, libraries and independently.
‘The social context of massed porcelain display: Aesthetics, politics and history in Liu Jianhua’s installation of Regular-Fragile at Oxburgh Hall’, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, December 2018.
‘The Commissioning and Representation of Local Labour by Global Contemporary Artists in the Porcelain City of Jingdezhen’, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand, Australian National University, Canberra, December 2016.
Workshops, symposia & public events
Writing lives, revealing lives – Portraiture and personhood, Australian National University in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, 30 June – 1 July 2018.
A forum on biography and creativity, fostering discussions and activities that brought to life portrayals of personhood in writing and portraiture and aimed to promote thinking about biographical expression, appealing to audiences passionate about biography and the visual arts. Contributors included Paul Capsis, Brenda L Croft, Kim Mahood, Dr Lucy Neave, Sebastian Smee, Dr Nicola Dickson, Bern Emmerichs, Linde Ivimey, Valerie Kirk, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Carol McGregor, and Pamela See (Xue Mei-Ling).
The Transnational in Asian Art: Historical and Contemporary Contexts around Migration, Diaspora, Mobility and Cultural Flows, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, 28 September 2017.
This graduate workshop complemented a one-day invitation-only interdisciplinary symposium on the subject of Asian Diasporas/TransPacific Contexts and Global Art, with participation from leading experts from North America, Asia and the Pacific working on Asia and diaspora studies in a number of disciplines. While the symposium focused on contemporary art, the graduate workshop was open to papers discussing our theme of The Transnational in Asian Art in both historical and contemporary contexts. The workshop was led by Professor Margo Machida of the University of Connecticut, a renowned expert on Asian American art, and was convened by Dr Caroline Turner, Professor Jacqueline Lo, Dr Elly Kent and Dr Alex Burchmore.
Moving Objects: A roundtable discussion of global currents in Asian art, Centre for Art History and Art Theory, School of Art & Design, Australian National University, Canberra, 18 April 2017.
Coinciding with the residency at the School of Art & Design of Associate Professor Sin-ying Ho (Queens College, City University of New York), an international ceramic artist whose long career has spanned many cultural contexts, this roundtable was convened with the aim of introducing postgraduate students to global issues in Asian art. “The global” was defined broadly to encompass any circumstances, motivating influences or artistic narratives that reflect or derive from movement, either physical or conceptual, across cultural boundaries, including considerations of migration and diaspora, travel and translation, trade and exchange, artistic collaboration across different cultural backgrounds, and issues associated with the international display and interpretation of Asian art. The discussion focused on objects, emphasising the materiality of the global as something that can be seen or otherwise sensed directly within a work of art.
Dr Alex Burchmore 