Perspectives on creative arts in higher education
If the debates about the state of the creative arts PhD appear to have slowed down over the last 15 years, it is perhaps not only due to a contraction of the sector, but because the questions being asked of it are no longer in sync with forces driving
Australia is now entering into a “second convict age”. This was the bold assertion made by Federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh in his recent report on the rising rates of incarceration in Australia. Currently more than 10.74 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, and since
The Feral Queer Camp, at its most simple, involves pulling together a “gaggle”, a group or gang, of queer people who are interested in performance – this could be theatre makers, audience members, writers – and just travelling together through a series of performances, so that we can build
Two dancers face each other two metres apart in a bare studio. Drawing arcs in the air between them with deft counterweighted movement, their mirrored gestures trigger strings of words: “White matter … things to infer … spectral hearing … brain has to save you.” An echolalia or a
In 2019, nearly 500 women over fifty participated in a photography event called 500 Strong. Photographer Ponch Hawkes photographed these women posing nude in studio spaces in Melbourne and in Victorian regional towns … to fashion a dialogue about women’s bodies that avoided the clichés of decline and loss,
It is well-known musicians enjoy their art form because it blends challenge and satisfaction: playing with a high-level of motor and musical refinement, while facilitating important self-to-other transactions linked to social cohesion, and implicit and explicit wellbeing outcomes. In the early months of 2020, the world went into a
The Creativity and Wellbeing Hallmark Research Initiative (CAWRI) was established in 2019 by a group of senior researchers from seven of the University of Melbourne’s ten faculties to build capacity and foster inter- and cross-disciplinary research collaborations focusing on creativity and wellbeing.
Recent online interviews with Professor Carol Becker, Dean of the Columbia University School of the Arts, and Professor Rob Cutietta, Dean of the Thornton School of Music, University of Southern California (USC), offered insights into the impact of 2020 on the tertiary arts sector on the eastern and western
Professor Marie Sierra has been announced as the new Dean of the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. Professor Sierra, who is a DDCA Board member, has a long career in the arts having held senior positions at the University of Tasmania and most recently as Deputy
Art for me has always been a process to make sense as I am a performance artist that utilises endurance to challenge the contingencies of space, time, and the body. The focus of my PhD research is precisely this.
In the spirit of reconciliation, the DDCA acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.