Staff Profiles

Areas of Expertise

Art and Cultural Theory; Contemporary Art; Theories of Trauma, Conflict and Politics.

Teaching Areas

Contemporary Art, Cultrual Theoory, Theories of Memory, Identity, Subjectivity; Pornography.

Current Research Activity

Jill Bennett is founding Director of the UNSW Research Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics at COFA, where she is currently involved in collaborative research projects, including Ethical Globalism (with academics in the Netherlands and South Africa, investigating new forms of political intervention in contemporary art and exhibition practice) and Construction, Community and Connection. Jill has published numerous articles on affect and imagery, on contemporary cultrue and community, and on trauma, conflict and art, in journals such as Signs and Art History. She has curated several exhibitions, including Telling Tales (Sydney, 1998; Graz, 1999), African Marketplace (Sydney, 2002) and Prepossession (Sydney and Belfast, 2005). Jill's latest book Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art is a theoretical analysis of art dealing with trauma and conflict from places such as Northern Ireland, South Africa, Colombia, Indigenous Australia.

Publications

Books

Bennett, J. , 2008 , T-Visionarium: A User's Guide , Sydney , UNSW Press .

Bennett, J. , 2005 , Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art , Stanford, California , Stanford University Press .

Bennett, J. , 2004 , Fantasmi: Dennis Del Favero, 1996-2003 , Sydney , UNSW Press and Sprengel Museum .

Kennedy, R. , 2003 , World Memory: Personal Trajectories in Global Time , New York/London , Palgrave .

Projects

Transforming Aesthetics  (2005)
Conference and book project

Construction, Community and Connection: measuring Asian art's contribution to culture  (2007-10)
A collaborative research project with Casula Arts Centre and Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai. This project focuses on interdisciplinary practices (in particular, collaborations between artists, architects and writers) and contemporary understandings of community.

Grants

Clark Institute, Massachusetts, Sterling + Francine Clark Fellowship. (2009),

Australian Research Council, Discovery Grant, Practical Aesthetics: A Study in Understanding Real Events through Contemporary Art. (2008-10),

Australian Research Council, Linkage Grant, Construction, Community and Connection: Measuring the Contribution of Asian Art to Contemporary Culture. (2007-10),

Australian Research Council, Discovery Grant, Ethical Globalism: Changing Strategies of Political Critique and Intervention in Art and Curatorial Practice after 1989. (2004-2007),

Professional Associations

Art Association of Australia and New Zealand
President 2002-06

UNSW Research Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics
Director

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