Catherine De Lorenzo

I am an art historian whose research connects the histories and historiographies of Australian art, photography and exhibitions, ethnophotography (my PhD area), Australian and European photographic exchange, contemporary public art and architectural photography. Unusually for art historians in Australia, my work can be found in leading national and international journals on Australian and Aboriginal studies, literature, visual anthropology, urban and visual studies, histories of photography, architecture and landscape architecture, as well as art history and art historiography. Linking this seemingly diverse range of fields is the legacy of my PhD, which identified two modes of representation, namely, the ways Aborigines were photographed for European consumption rather than with respect to their reality, and the changes in representation prompted by Aboriginal agency. I believe the recurrent interdisciplinary and cross-cultural themes I explore serve to strengthen and enrich my art historical practice. Finally, whereas my recent joint project investigates changing perceptions of Australian culture through art exhibitions, this solo one re-examines the complexity of Australian art and culture as seen globally.

My current project takes as its point of departure French photographic collections, exhibitions and installations about Australia and its peoples at key moments from the mid nineteenth century to today, including the protagonists and policies that shaped them, and the architectures that housed them. Because it works with material that falls outside strictly colonial frameworks it offers an anamorphic critique of national, colonial and post-colonial photo histories. I draw on this research in A Certain Regard: Representations of Australia in France, my working title for a book.