Keynote 2015

8th Annual Undergraduate Research Conference, March 6-7, 2015

Elizabeth Presa

Following a Thread: Interdisciplinarity and Unexpected Registers of Truth

Elizabeth Presa

Elizabeth Presa is a visual artist and Head of the interdisciplinary Centre for Ideas, Faculty of the VCA & MCM, the University of Melbourne. Elizabeth studied Sculpture at the VCA and the Phillip Institute, then completed an honours degree in Art History and Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and an MA and PhD at Monash University. She has an ongoing interest in the interconnections between philosophy and art and how they intersect in interdisciplinary curriculum and research design. Elizabeth has been a visiting artist and scholar at many universities internationally, most recently at Minzu University, Beijing. Artist residencies include several residencies at the Cite International Des Arts, Paris; Nanyang Academy of Art, Singapore, and a Research Fellowship for a project on St Teresa of Avila at the Five College's Women's Research Centre, Mt Holyoke, Massachusetts. In 2013 she was artist-in-residence at Youkobo Art Space Tokyo to research the Ginza beehives; and at Pilchuck glass school in the USA.

Editions Galilee, Paris, presented an exhibition of her work made in response to Chaque Fois Unique by Jacques Derrida, and she has written on the interconnections between Rodin, Rilke and Blanchot in After Blanchot: Literature, Criticism and Philosophy (University of Delaware). Her curatorial work has included three iterations of `Do It? with Hans Ulrich Obrist (see interview in Do It: The Compendium, 2013). Currently she is working on a series of beehive projects titled `Apian Utopias: Small Architecture for Bees' which involves projects and exhibitions in Tokyo , the USA, Beijing , New Zealand and Australia. Most recently she has written on art and object relations theory in The Winnicott Tradition: Lines of Development, (Karnac Books, London). Elizabeth Presa's work is featured in Verwisch Die Spuren (Diaphanes) by the philosopher Alexander Garcia Duttmann.

» Click here to visit Elizabeth Presa's website