Professor Jennifer Biddle

My Expertise

Visual anthropology; First Nations, Aboriginal, Indigenous critical theory; Global and Contemporary art; Feminism, phenomenology and radical theories of embodiment; Collaborative methodologies and experimental ethnnography.

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

Jennifer L Biddle is Professor and Director of emLAB (the Ethnographic Media Lab), 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 and served as Head of School. At UNSW, she is founding Director of emLAB (formerly Visual Anthropology & Visual Culture, NIEA), in the Big Anxiety Research Cetnre (BARC), 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 has served as acting member of the ARC’s College of Experts (2019-2021), and is currently a member of ARC MRAG (Medical Advisory Group).

An anthropologist with a background in linguistics, she has worked with northern Warlpiri in Lajamanu for three decades, and more recently, in partnership with (select) Central and Western Desert community art and media organisations. In 2023-2024, she is Gough Whitlam and Malcom Fraser Chair in Australian Studies at Harvard University.

My Grants

Competitive Grants History (Select)

*J.Biddle (Advisor), Sudiipta Dowsett (Coordinator), Myra Nungarrayi Herbert (Lajamanu Senior Knowledge Holder), Lynette Napangardi Tasman (Lajamanu Senior Knowledge Holder/artist), Judy Napangardi Martin (Lajamanu senior singer/artist), Biddy Napanangka Timms (Lajamanu senior singer/artist), Denise Napangardi Robertson (Lajamanu Senior Knowledge Holder/artist), Enid Nangala Gallagher (Yuendumu transcriber and arts worker), Lorraine Nungarrayi Granites (Yuendumu senior singer), Maisy Napurrurla Wayne (Yuendumu senior singer), in conjunction with Warnayaka Art & Aboriginal Cultural Corporation.
Indigenous Languages and Arts (ILA) Program Lajamanu Women’s Ceremony: Keeping Yawulyu Strong 2021-2024 $110,270.

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

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

*J. Biddle, Chris Salter, David Howes and Marcelo Wanderley 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 2014-2017 $445,000 (AUS $461,000)

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

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

* 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 Class) Anthropology and Comparative Sociology, Macquarie University, Sydney, 1985

PhD, Anthropology, University of Sydney, 1997

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

Public Blog

*J. Biddle with Fred Myers and Terry Smith (2025) Author Interview web/blog on ‘Six Paintings from Papunya: A Conversation’ (Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2024) CaMP Anthropology Communication, Media and Performancehttps://campanthropology.org

Book Chapters

* J. Biddle and C. L’Hirondelle (in development, forthcoming 2025) ‘”Futures that were not intended for us*’”: in support of the eel’s’ for The Art and Architecture of Mapping: Visual and Material Approaches to Cartographic Objects, Courtauld Art Institute edited by Stephen Whiteman and Emily Mann.

* J. Biddle, in dialogue with D.A.T Miner, W. Mignolo, J.Tshilumba Mukendi, R. Simbao, V. Tello (2023) ‘Contemporaneities: Aanikoobijiganag (Ancestors // Descendants) and Decolonized Time’ in Tello V., Simbao R., Miner DAT., Mignolo W., Butt Z., Hernández É., Machiavello C., Future Souths: Aesthetics and Dialogues of the Global Souths, London and Melbourne: Third Text Publications and Discipline

*J. Biddle (2021) ‘Country, skin, canvas: The incorporeal art of Kathleen Petyarre’ in Marsh A., Doing Feminism: Women’s Art and Feminist Criticism in Australia, Solicited Reprint, Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, pp. 209, 469-473.

*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

* W.S.P Jampijiinpa, S. Dowsett and J. Biddle (forthcoming 2025) ‘Milpirri Eco-Somatics: Hip Hop and Warlpiri Embodied Senses of Place’ forthcoming in world of music (new series) special issue ‘Ecomusicology Indigenous Australia and Aotearoa (New Zeland)’ edited by Georgia Curran, Myfany Turpin and Payi Linda Ford

* S. Kite, J.Biddle and F. Marchetti (submitted, under review) ‘On stones, ethical failure and epistemological wormholes: a conversation between Suzanne Kite, Jennifer Biddle and Florencia Marchetti’ special edition ‘AI and Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Knowing, Engaging, and Learning in New Data Contexts’ edited by Holly Randell-Moon, Jessica Russ Smith and Karaitiana Taiuru, forthcoming in Somatechnics: Journal of bodies - technology – power

*J. Biddle (forthcoming 2025) ‘Emily Kam Kngwarray’ Visual Anthropology Review, Spring

* r e a, J.Biddle, L. Hibberd ‘The artificial as an intelligent Indigenous/indigenizing system’, Special Edition (Saunier, A. and Salter, C., eds.) Anthropology of the Artificial’ Visual Anthropology Review, 39:2 pp. 458-474

*J. Biddle (2019) ‘Tjanpi Desert Weavers and the Art of Indigenous Survivance’ Special Edition (Neimanis A. and Hamilton J., eds.) “What Do We Want? Feminist Environment Humanities” Australian Feminist Studies, 34:102, pp. 413-436.

*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 Panel Convenor with Discussant Sudiipta Dowsett, presenters: Wanta Steve Patrick Jampijinpa (Warlpiri) Mitch King (Yaegl Bundjalung) Marc Peckham aka Monkey Marc ‘Hip Hop as Survivance’ for Big Trauma/Big Change: Building Tomorrow Today, BARC, UNSW, March 21-23, 2024 convened by Jill Bennett

* J.Biddle invited participant Art, Power, Inequalities Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) and the Power Institute, SydneyOrganised by Tony Bennett, Mark Ledbury and Nicholas Croggan, 2024

* J. Biddle invited participant Decolonizing the Avant-Garde rue du Colonel Combes, 75007 Paris, June 12-13, 2024 Organised by Sascha Bru, Fabrice Flahute, Iveta Slavkova and Isabel Wünsche https://www.aup.edu/news-events/event/2024-06-12/decolonizing-avant-garde-conference

*J. Biddle invited speaker ‘Performing Country’, October 5th Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. https://kluge-ruhe.org/event/4092/

* 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

My Research Supervision

Areas of supervision

Visual and social anthropology, multisensory and decolonial ethnography, feminsim and critical phenomemology. First Nations, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island, Indigenous, diaspora and migratory aesthetics; art-under-occupation and extractive zones; resurgence and tradition in transformation. Experimental empiricism, creative non-fiction and counter-ethnographic writing.

View less

Location

Arts, Design & Architecture

Contact

02-89360751

j.biddle@unsw.edu.au

Follow

My Google Scholar

Publications

by Professor Jennifer Biddle

View all »

ORCID as entered in ROS

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0962-4552