Professor Jennifer Biddle

My Expertise

Visual anthropology of Aboriginal art, language and culture; Global and Contemporary Indigenous art theory; Feminism, phenomenology and radical theories of embodiment; Experimental ethnography.

Fields of Research (FoR)

Art theory, Visual cultures, Social and cultural anthropology, Feminist theory, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander linguistics and languages, Digital and electronic media art, Cultural studies

SEO tags

Expanding Knowledge through Studies of Human Society

Communication across languages and cultures

Conserving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage

Expanding Knowledge through Studies of the Creative Arts and Writing

Biography

Professor Jennifer L Biddle is Associate Dean Engagement and Impact for UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture.

Biddle joined UNSW in 2007, recruited as a VC Strategic Research Appointment (SPF) from the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University, where she taught interdisciplinary approaches to the comparative study of culture. She is founding Director of Visual Anthropology & Visual Culture, NIEA, UNSW School of Art & Design; an international program specialising in Indigenous and Asia Pacific research, one of only a few programs in Australia to support ethnographic and practice-led research as a basis for creative and critical research innovation in the arts. The recipient of numerous awards and grants, former Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow, she is currently a Chief Investigator on two internationally collaborative ARC and SSHRC funded research projects. She is acting member of the ARC’s College of Experts (2019-2021). In 2022-2023, she is Gough Whitlam and Malcom Fraser Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University.

An anthropologist with a background in linguistics, she has worked with northern Warlpiri in Lajamanu for over two decades, and more recently, in partnership with (select) Central and Western Desert community art organisations. Her most recent monograph, Remote Avant-Garde: Aboriginal Art under Occupation, was published by Duke University Press. and models the importance of new and emergent desert Aboriginal aesthetics as an art of survival.

My Grants

Competitive Grants History (Select)

*J. Biddle D. McMicken, T. Newth, Australian Research Council Linkage Project Indigenous Futurity: Milpirri as Experimental Ceremony 2020-2023 $469,000

*J. Biddle, Sarah Kenderdine, Chris Salter, David Howes (Lead CI: Biddle) 2017-2019 $243,000 Australia Research Council Discovery Project Cultural Sensorium: An ethnography of the senses

*J. Biddle, Chris Salter, David Howes and Marcelo Wanderley 2014-2017 $445,000 (AUS $461,000) Canadian SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) Sensory Entanglements: New Cross Cultural and Cross-Disciplinary Directions in the Creation and Evaluation of Multi-Sensorial Experience

* J. Biddle, Ross Harley, Jill Bennett, Mark Ledbury, Jaynie Anderson, Peter McNeil, Deb Verhoeven, Catherine Speck, Marie Sierra, Joanna Mendelssohn, Alison Inglis, Gillian Fuller 2014-2015 $190,000 Australian Research Council LIEF Design and Art Australia Online

*J. Biddle 2010-2014 $777,000 Australian Research Council Future Fellowship Remote Avant-Garde: Experimental Indigenous Arts

* J. Biddle 2010 $25,000 Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) Yawulyu as Intergenerational Art: A Pilot Study

*J. Biddle, Robyn Ferrell 2005-2007 $250,000 Australian Research Council Discover Project Feminist Aesthetics meets Indigenous Art

*J. Biddle 1989 $20,000 Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS, now AIATSIS) Postgraduate Research Award on Warlpiri Art and Writing

My Qualifications

BA Honours (1st) Anthropology and Comparative Sociology (Macquarie); PhD Anthropology (USyd).

My Research Activities

PUBLICATIONS

Authored Books

* J. Biddle Remote Avant-Garde: Aboriginal Art Under Occupation Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016

* J. Biddle Breasts, Bodies, Canvas: Aboriginal Art as Experience Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007

Edited Journal Editions

* J. Biddle and Tess Lea (eds) Special Edition ‘Hyperrealism and other Indigenous forms of ‘Faking it with the Truth” Visual Anthropology Review 2018

* J. Biddle and Lisa Stefanoff (eds) Special Edition “Same but Different: Interventions” Cultural Studies Review 21:1 2015

Book Chapters

*J. Biddle (forthcoming 2021) in Doing Feminism: Women's Art and Feminist Criticism in Australia 1968-2018. Melbourne University Press

* J. Biddle (2020) ‘Approaching the Sacred: from Art Centers to National Art Fairs’ in Tony Bennett, Deborah Stevenson, Fred Myers, and Tamara Winikoff (eds) The Australian Art Field: Practices, Policies, Markets: Routledge

* J. Biddle (2019) ‘Milpirri: Activating the At-Risk’ in Kahn, Doug (ed), Energies in the Arts Cambridge: MIT Press

* J. Biddle (2018) ‘Notes on the Hapticity of Colour’ in Diana Young (ed), Re-materialising Colour London: Sean Kingston Publishers

* J. Biddle (2018) ‘Tjanpi Desert Weavers’ in Marcus Boone and Gabriel Levine (eds), Practice, Documents of Contemporary Art, Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press

* J. Biddle (2018) ‘Remote Avant-Garde: Tjanpi Desert Weavers’ in David Howes (ed.), Senses and Sensation: Critical and Primary Sources, vols. I-IV. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic

* J. Biddle ‘Provocations from the Margins: the production and curation of the Warburton Arts Project’ in Tu-Di Shen-Ti: Our Land Our Body Warburton: Warburton Arts Project (2013a)

* J. Biddle ‘Radical Realism and Other Possibilities in Contemporary Indigenous Intercultural Cinema’ in Atkinson, M. and Richardson, M. (eds) Traumatic Affect Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing (2013b)

* J. Biddle ‘Yapa-Kurlangu Jukurrpa (Proper Human Art)’ in Art in the Digital Desert: Warnayaka Arts Lajamanu: Warnayaka Arts and Craft (2013c)

* J. Biddle, ‘Literate Savages: Central Desert Painting as Writing’, in T. Berman (ed.), No Deal! Indigenous Art and the Politics of Possession, Santa Fe: SAR Press (2012)

* J. Biddle ‘The new performativity of Western Desert Women’s Art’ in I. McLean (ed.), How Aborigines Invented the Idea of Contemporary Art: 1980-2006, Power Publications and the Institute of Modern Art (2012a)

* J. Biddle ‘Reading Aboriginal Art’ in I. McLean (ed.), How Aborigines Invented the Idea of Contemporary Art: 1980-2006, Power Publications and the Institute of Modern Art (2012b)

* J. Biddle, ‘Shame’, in J. Harding and D. Pribram (eds.), Emotions: A Cultural Studies Reader, London and New York: Routledge (2010)

* J. Biddle, ‘Sentiment and Absence: the “Stolen Generation” Apology’, in C. Busby, Sorry, Vancouver: St Mary’s University Art Gallery (2008a)

* J. Biddle, ‘The Imperative to Feel: Recent Intercultural Australian Cinema’, in F. Fenner (ed.), Unimaginable: Australian Chapter, Sydney: Ivan Dougherty Gallery (2008b)

* J. Biddle ‘Anthropology as Eulogy: On Loss, Lies and License’ in J. Bennett and R. Kennedy (eds), World Memories: Personal Trajectories in Global Times, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire and New York (2003)

* J. Biddle, ‘Inscribing Identity: Skin as Country in the Central Desert’, in S. Ahmed and J. Stacey (eds) Thinking Through the Skin, London and New York: Routledge (2001) pp. 177-193

* J. Biddle, ‘Writing Without Ink: Literacy, Methodology and Cultural Difference’, in A. Lee and C. Poynton (eds), Culture and Text: Discourse and Methodology in Social Research and Cultural Studies, St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin (2000) pp.170-187

* J. Biddle, ‘Dot, Circle, Difference: Translating Central Desert Paintings’ in R. Diprose and R. Ferrell (eds) Cartographies: Poststructuralism and the mapping of bodies and spaces, St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin, (1991)

Journal Articles

* J. Biddle (2020) ‘Tjituru, Tjituru: Tjanpi Desert Weavers and the art of Indigenous Survivance’ Special Edition (Astrida Neimanis and Jennifer Hamilton, eds.) “Feminist Environment Humanities” Australian Feminist Studies 34:102, pp.413-43

*J. Biddle (2019) ‘Inheritance’ Cultural Studies Review 25:2 pp. 237-240

* J. Biddle and Patrick, Wanta Steve Jampijinpa (2018) ‘Not just ceremony, not just dance, not just idea: Milpirri as hyper-realism, a key word discussion’ in Biddle, J. and Tess, L. (eds) Special Edition ‘Hyperrealism and other Indigenous forms of ‘Faking it with the Truth” Visual Anthropology Review

* J. Biddle and Lea, Tess (2018) ‘Introduction: Faking it With the Truth’ in Biddle, J. and Tess, L. (eds) Special Edition ‘Hyperrealism and other Indigenous forms of ‘Faking it with the Truth” Visual Anthropology Review

* J. Biddle, Lily Hibberd and Curtis Taylor (2016) ‘The Phone Booth Project: Martu Media Memories: A conversation in three parts’ Public 54, 110-121

* J. Biddle ‘Sentience and Sentimentality in Remembering Yayayai’ The Cinefiles 10 (Spring) 2016

* J. Biddle ‘”My Name is Danny”” Indigenous Animation as Hyper-realism’ Angelaki (2015) 20:3 105-113

* J. Biddle and Lisa Stefanoff ‘What is Same but Different and why does it matter’ Introduction to Cultural Studies Review Special Edition (eds. Biddle and Stefanoff) ‘Same but Different: experimentation and innovation in Desert Arts’ 2015 21:1 pp. 97-120

* J. Biddle, Tim Newth and David McMicken ‘Milpirri: Jennifer Biddle in Discussion with Tracks Dance Company’ Cultural Studies Review Special Edition Same but Different (eds. Biddle and Stefanoff) 2015 21: 1 pp. 132-148

* J. Biddle ‘Making (not taking) History: Yiwarra Kuju The Canning Stock Route’ Art Monthly, No. 252, August, 2012, pp. 32-36

* J. Biddle ‘A Politics of Proximity: Tjanpi and other experimental Western Desert Art’ Studies in Material Thinking Vol 8, Paper 12, 2012, pp 1-15

* J. Biddle, ‘Art Under Intervention: the radical ordinary of June Walkujukurr Richards’ Art Monthly, Issue 227, March 2010, pp 35-39

* J. Biddle, ‘Culture as Contagion or Why Place No Longer Matters’, Emotion, Society And Space, 1:1, 2009, pp. 1-27

* J. Biddle, ‘Breast, Bodies, Art: Central Desert Women’s Paintings and the Politics of the Aesthetic Encounter’, Cultural Studies Review, 12:1, 2006, pp. 16-31

* J. Biddle Review Article ‘Jill Bennett Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma and Contemporary Art’ AAANZ Journal of Art 6 (1), 2005, pp. 120-123

* J. Biddle, ‘Country, Skin, Canvas: The Intercorporeal Art of Kathleen Petyarre’, AAANZ Journal of Art, 4:1, 2003, pp. 61-76

* J. Biddle, ‘The Warlpiri Alphabet and Other Colonial Fantasies”, Visual Communication, 3:1, 2002 pp. 267-291

* J. Biddle, ‘Bruises that Won’t Heal: Melancholic Identification and Other Ethnographic Hauntings’, Mortality, 7:1, 2002, pp. 96-110

* J. Biddle, ‘Shame’, Australian Feminist Studies, 12:26, 1997, pp. 227-240

* J. Biddle, ‘When Not Writing is Writing’, Australian Aboriginal Studies 1, 1996, pp. 21-33

* J.Biddle, ‘The Anthropologist’s Body or what it means to break your neck in the field’ Australian Journal of Anthropology 1993 4 (3) 184-197

Public Forums and Other Publications (select)

* J, Biddle S. Kite, D. Garneau, r e a, D. Howes, C. Salter 2020 Sensory Entanglements: Decolonising the Senses (Project Website) https://sensoryentanglements.org

*J.Biddle in conversation with convenors Chris Salter and Erik Adigard (2020) Sensory Orders Conversation #3 – ‘on borders and difference’ Thursday, December 10, https://www.facebook.com/cswlaznia/live/

* J. Biddle 2020 ‘Less: Notes from the Field, Black Summer, Sydney 2019-2020’ Experimental Ethnography, Sensory Orders, Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), Gdansk, Poland. http://www.sensoryorders.com/responses/

* J. Biddle ‘Introduction to Visual Anthropology Lab’ UNSW Art & Design Resources 2015, UNSW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq1S4h19IQw

* J. Biddle ‘Art from Out There: Talking Point with Dr. Jennifer Biddle ’ UNSW Uniken article 2013 http://uniken.unsw.edu.au/ YouTube: http://youtu.be/A3_y20hMObE UNSWTV: https://tv.unsw.edu.au/video/art-from-out-there-talking-point-with-dr-jennifer-biddle

iTunesU - Art and Design collection: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=423492054

* J. Biddle ‘Remote Avant-garde’ UNSW COFA Partnerships with Remote Aboriginal Communities COFATalks 2011

http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/cofa-talks-online/cofa-talks-online?view=video&video=113 .

* J. Biddle and Tasman, Rosie Napurrurla ‘Lamparnu Kala!’ A multi-media art installation including remixed sound and voice (Biddle and Tasman, 1989, recording Biddle 1989) and Yawulyu (traditional Women’s Song, Dance and body designs, recording Biddle 1991); Yukurukuru (Women’s ceremonial dancing boards, in ochre, acrylic and oil) by Tasman 1989, 1991 and 2009, and acrylic painting ‘Lamparnu Kala’ (Tasman 2007), accompanied by installed text ‘Lamparnu Kala’ (Biddle 2009). Sound Mixing by Hugh Benjamin. Interventions: Experiments between Ethnography and art, Macquarie University and Australian Anthropological Association Conference 2009

* J.Biddle ‘Not a Provenance, not a Collaboration: Lamparnu Kala!’ in Deger, J. (ed) Interventions: experiments between Ethnography and Art Sydney: Macquarie University, 2009, pp. 32-33

* J. Biddle ‘Wurra Wiyi or Why I Love Speaking Warlpiri’ Voice of the Land: Federation for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages Issue 41 October, 2009

* J. Biddle in conversation with Warwick Thornton UNSW YouTube ‘Flash of Indigenous Life’:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v99ThZbqmI 2008

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