Associate Professor Bianca Hester
Associate Professor
Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA)
iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research
Bianca Hester is an artist, writer and educator whoÌýspecialises in critical place-based practice through artistic research. Her workÌýfocuses on the environmental aesthetics of a settler-colonial Anthropocene to investigate entanglements between colonial inheritance, extraction, environmental crisis, evolution and extinction evident within specific locations across Australia. Employing relational feminist methodologies, she combines experimental fieldwork, engaging the geologic record (in archives and in situ), embodied site-writing, sculptural production, collaboration and performed actions to develop artistic projects that unpack the material conditions of specific locations across the continent, resulting in an expansive form of public art unfolding in dialogue with a range of interlocutors and participants.
Bianca has exhibited widely within Australia and internationally. Recent works include: Dust of these domains, SITEWORKS, Bundanon (2023); Reading Walking Lithic Bodies, Museum of Contemporary Art (2022), Constellating bodies in temporary correspondence (2015-2016; 2021) exhibited within ‘Perspectives on Place: Works from the MCA Collection relating to land, mapping and environmental change’, Museum of Contemporary Art (2021-2023); movements materialising momentarily, ST PAUL St Gallery, Auckland (2015); Down City Streets (with the Space Place and Country research group 2015); Fashioning Discontinuities presented during the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); Hoops: sound tests, performances, documents, Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013); only from the perspective of a viewer situated upon the surface of the earth does day and night occur, Glasgow International Festival for Visual Arts, (2012); a world fully accessible by no living being, which was the winning entry for the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture (2011); please leave these windows open overnight to enable the fans to draw in cool air during the early hours of the morning, The Helen MacPherson Solo Commission at The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2010); and projectprojects at The Showroom in London (2008). She is currently developing new research titled Lithic Bodies, funded by Australia Council for the Arts individual project Grant) Project code: RG220506
Alongside exhibitions, Hester has developed numerous practice-led publications including: Sandstone, Lost Rocks, A Published Event (2020) and Converging in time, with Open Spatial Workshop, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2017) which was awarded theÌýMuseums Australia Publication Design Awards for major exhibition catalogue, 2018Ìýand the AAANZ Best University Art Catalogue, 2018.Her recent book Groundwork (2021) is published through Perimeter Editions (#069).
Hester studied sculpture at RMIT, Melbourne, where she completed her practice-led PhD titled Material Adventures, Spatial Productions: Manoeuvring Sculpture Towards a Proliferating Event, in 2007 which won a University research prize in 2008. She was a founding member of CLUBSpropject inc in Melbourne (2002-2007) and is a continuing member of the Open Spatial Workshop collective with Scott Mitchell and Terri Bird since 2003. Hester has lectured at Victorian College of the Arts (2004-2012) and the Sydney College of the Arts (2016), where she was a post-doctoral research fellow and the co-leader of the Space, Place and Country research cluster with Dr Saskia Beudel between 2013-2016. She is a Sidney Myer Creative Fellow (2017-2018) and was an Artspace studio resident throughout 2017.
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Hester is currently Associate Professor in Art and Design and is the Co-Director for Research and Engagement with Oliver Bown, an Associate Investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH), and on the Editorial Committee for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art (AANZJA).
She convenes Studio Art Practice 5. She has experience teaching across all levels in undergraduate programs and in supervising practice-led Honours, MFA and PhD projects since 2004.
Website:Ìýwww.biancahester.com
Open Spatial Workshop website:Ìý
Down City Streets:Ìý
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E-mail
- Publications
- Grants
- Awards
- Teaching and Supervision
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Media
2023Ìý Ìý ÌýAustralia Council for the Arts, Visual Arts Section, Arts projects for Individuals and Groups, to developÌýLithic Bodies
2020Ìý Ìý ÌýAustralia Council for the Arts, Visual Arts Section, Arts projects for Individuals and Groups to develop New Work (with Open Spatial Workshop)
2017-18Ìý Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship
2016Ìý ÌýÌýAustralia Council for the Arts, Visual Arts Section, Arts projects for Individuals and Groups to develop New Work (with Open Spatial Workshop)
2015Ìý ÌýÌýAustralia Council for the Arts, Visual Arts Section, Arts projects for Individuals and Groups to develop a publication
2014Ìý ÌýÌýAustralia Council for the Arts, Visual Arts Section, Skills and Arts Development General to develop a research project in Auckland
2014Ìý ÌýÌýNSW Arts and Cultural Development Program, Artist Support Grant
2013Ìý ÌýÌýDVC Research Compacts Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Scheme (3 year full-time fellowship including research support)
2013Ìý ÌýÌýNew Work Fellowship, Australia Council for Visual Arts
2013Ìý ÌýÌýNew Work Fellowship (with Open Spatial Workshop) Australia Council for Visual Arts
2011Ìý ÌýÌýAustralia Council for the Arts, Visual Arts Section, Skills and Arts Development
2010Ìý ÌýÌýHelen Macpherson Smith Commission, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
2009Ìý ÌýÌýCity of Melbourne grant to develop a publication of PhD research
2009Ìý ÌýÌýArts Victoria, New Work, Presentation grant (with Open Spatial Workshop for the West Brunswick Sculpture Triennial
2006Ìý ÌýÌýAustralia Council Visual Arts Board, Skills and Development grant
2006Ìý ÌýÌýArts Victoria, International Program, Cultural Exchange
2006Ìý ÌýÌýAustralia Council Artist Initiatives development grant for CLUBSproject Inc
2004Ìý ÌýÌýArts Victoria new work development award
2001ÌýÌýÌý APA (Australian Postgraduate Award) to undertake doctoral research
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2018ÌýÌýÌý Museums Australia Publication Design Award (MAPDA) for major exhibition catalogue, for Converging in time (with Open Spatial Workshop)
2018ÌýÌýÌý AAANZ Best University Art Catalogue, for Converging in time (with Open Spatial Workshop)
2016Ìý ÌýÌýSidney Myer Creative Fellowship (over 2017-2018)
2011ÌýÌýÌý Winner of The Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture
2008ÌýÌýÌý RMIT University Research Prize for outstanding PhD project
2006ÌýÌýÌý Sieman’s prize, RMIT
2005Ìý ÌýWinner of The Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture (with Open Spatial Workshop)
My Research Supervision
Current PhD Supervisions
Caitlin Dubler. Research Area:ÌýGlass as a multivalent site of geological and social inheritances.ÌýSupervised jointly with Dr Zoe Veness.
Monika Citanovic. Research Area:ÌýCrafting time to care: sloppy stitching as a method of reclamation of the embodied history of women's craft-based knowledge wihtin a regenerative textile practice.ÌýSupervised jointly with Dr Rochelle Hayley and Associate Professor Alison Gwilt.
Mason Kimber. Research area: Surface Archeology: memory and matter in expanded painting. Supervised jointly with Professor Stephen Loo.
Emma Pinset.ÌýResearch Area:ÌýPorous matter: re-worlding fouled materials of the intertidal zone through sculptural practice. Supervised jointly with Dr David EastwoodÌý
Marcia Swaby. Research Area:ÌýExploring the haptic and tactile-sensory nature of GuanÃn: Researching Indigenous Caribbean Jewellery Practices. A practice-led research in decolonialism and jewellery craft, examining embodied ways of thinking through the re-performance of gestures.
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Previous Candidates (completed):
Miska Mandic. Research area: Pleating Time: Reframing relationships to ecological crisis by cinematically exposing the temporally distributed relations between everyday materials. Â鶹Éçmadou, 2024. PhD Supervised jointly with Dr Astrid Lorange.
Nick Breedon. Research area: Towards a neuroqueer aesthetic: queering heritage art forms. Â鶹Éçmadou, 2023. MFA Primary supervisor with Astrid Lorange as Secondary supervisor.
Patrick McDavitt. Research area:ÌýSculptural artistic practice drawing from archaeological methodologies to explore queerness as a process of excavation. Â鶹Éçmadou, 2023. MFA Primary supervisor with Astrid Lorange as Secondary supervisor.
Jo Mellor Stuart. Research area: Care and comfort in the era of solastalgia: Utilising a socially-engaged art practice to craft collaborative eco-feminist activism in The Darling River and Menindee Lakes System. Â鶹Éçmadou, 2023. MFA jointly supervised with Dr Fabri Blacklock.
Melody Newell. Research area: 'Kitsch Sights' investigates the aesthetic category of kitsch through poetry and a collaborative audio-visual performance. Â鶹Éçmadou, 2020. MFAÌýSecondary Supervisor with Astrid Lorange as Primary Supervisor.
Aneshka Mora. Worlding Otherwise: The use of Institutions as Medium and Method for Decolonisation in Contemporary Art Practices in and from 'Australia'. Â鶹Éçmadou, 2023. PhD Secondary supervisor with Veronica Tello as primary supervisor.
Cindy Chen,Ìý The Convergence of Aural and Optical Perception in the Experience of Place: How attentive listening through an experimental drawing practice can extend and challenge place representation, Â鶹Éçmadou, 2020. PhDÌýJointly supervised with Dr Uros Cvoro.
Kate Crawford,ÌýInstrument V:ÌýUsing electro-acoustic feedback to think about interconnection, Â鶹Éçmadou, MFA, 2022. Secondary Supervisor with Caleb Kelly as Primary Supervisor.
Kenzee Patterson, A tree branches, so does a river, SCA, University of Sydney, MFA, 2018.Ìý(Primary supervisor)
Therese Keogh, Re-building histories (and some things that happened down a well),ÌýSCA, University of Sydney, MFA, 2018.Ìý(Primary supervisor)
Chris Fox, Performative drawing apparatus: Relations of constraint and abandon,ÌýSCA, University of Sydney, MFA, 2017.Ìý(Primary supervisor)
Sarah Crow-Est, An unaccountable mass: bothersome matter and the humorous life of forms, VCA, University of Melbourne, PhD, 2012. JointlyÌýsupervised with Dr Barbara Bolt.
Akira Tamura, Embodied Practice, experience and intuition,ÌýVCA, University of Melbourne, MFA, 2012.Ìý(Primary supervisor)
Charlie Sofo, Pebbles, shattered glass, plastic, metal and dried grass: a research project on ritual action, experience and the everyday, VCA, University of Melbourne, MFA, 2012.Ìý(Primary supervisor)
Beth Arnold, Approaching Site,ÌýVCA, University of Melbourne, MFA, 2012. (Winner of the Sutton Gallery Prize).Ìý(Primary supervisor)
Dorothea Rechner, Detours along the spectrum of visibility: embodying views through three apparatuses: imaging, experimenting, re-presenting,ÌýVCA, University of Melbourne, MFA, 2012.Ìý(Primary supervisor)
Utako Shindo, Immanent landscape, VCA, University of Melbourne, MFA, 2012. (Primary supervisor)
Bree Dalton, MFA, The semper eadem: salting flesh shoreline project,ÌýVCA, University of Melbourne, MFA, 2012. (Primary supervisor)
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My Teaching
I currently convene and teach DART3100 Studio Art Practice 5 and tutor in DART4101 Fine Art Honours.