Statement Profile GlogauAIR Project CV Summary

Statement

Bianca Durrant is a Melbourne based Australian contemporary artist, with an exhibition history that interrogates the culture of collecting and the canons of art history. As institutional critique, and through an installation-based practice, exhibitions engage audiences to respond to objects, artworks and textual materials to reconsider our assumptions about cultural artefact, ownership, institutions and narrative. Residencies and creative developments have included accessing natural history museum collections, creating full scale mock museums and archived collections, and large scale wall drawings based on theory texts and collection data points.

Trained in fine arts and completing a Master of Arts (by research) in 2008, Durrant has maintained an exhibition practice since 2001, alongside engaging in professional practice and curatorial work for organisations, producing the work of Australian and international artists. Contributions to arts organisations include through board roles with artist run initiatives CAVES Inc and KINGS ARI, and as General Manager, Liquid Architecture – Festival of Sound Arts.

Profile

GlogauAIR Project

Through 2024 and as part of the GlogauAIR residency, Durrant will be developing a new body of work, extending their conceptual exploration of museums and collecting. The artist’s fascination with the politics of display delves into a deeper critique of the artistic process, merits of display methodologies, audience engagement and the relationship of text to object as presented within the contemporary gallery paradigm.

This new series Collectio Specere (working title) will focus on extending ideas around the fetishisation of the art object, or museum artifact, and museum ‘narrative’. In both producing the objects and then documenting, preserving, displaying and interpreting, Durrant asks audiences to consider both artistic production (labour) through the evidence of process, and the inscribed meaning of objects scrutinised through a museological lens (through the institution, and the viewer) through replicating a museum style viewing environment. Through studio development, text, scale and multiples will be harnessed as key mechanisms to explore these concepts.

CV Summary

Education

Master of Arts Curatorship (2023), The University of Melbourne
Master of Fine Art (by Research) 2008, Monash University
Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours 2002, Monash University
Bachelor of Fine Arts 2001, Monash University

Selected Exhibition History (all Australia)

2023 CCP x Hahnemühle Summer Salon 2023, Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy

2022 2021 ILFORD CCP Salon, Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy

2021 Without Walls group exhibition, Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, Melbourne

The Nillumbik Prize finalist exhibition, Montsalvat Gallery, Eltham

2019 The Strong Women Project solo, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Ballarat

2017 The Entomology Collection solo, Ballarat International Foto Biennale, Ballarat

2015 The New Museum solo, Seventh Gallery, Fitzroy

The Magpie Museum collaboration with Sue Dodd, Trocadero ArtSpaces, Footscray

Bird/Object solo, Northcote Gallery, Northcote

2014 Epitaph: Bird Specimens and the Culture of Collecting solo, Counihan Gallery, Brunswick

2012 The Birds of the Museum fur Naturkunde solo, Trocadero ArtSpaces, Footscray

2011 Fail Harder group exhibition, KINGS ARI, Melbourne

2010 Kings x Kings group exhibition, KINGS ARI, Melbourne

Fox and Owl installation, Northern Exposure Festival

Off to Never Never Land solo, 27 Gipps Street Gallery, Richmond

2009 Metadata and the Semantic Gap solo, Trocadero ArtSpaces, Footscray

Cat and Bird: The European Collection solo, Seventh Gallery, Fitzroy

On Colour Theory work in group exhibition, KINGS ARI, Melbourne

Taxidermied La Specola Lions installation Northern Exposure Festival

2008 The Second Opinion solo, Monash University, Caulfield

2006 The Examination solo, Trocadero ArtSpaces, Footscray

2006 Kodak Salon, Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy

Grants

2013 Arts Victoria Arts Development Grant: Research and Development of a series of new works based on the collections of European and Australian natural history collections.

Residencies

2024 GlogauAIR Artist in Residence program, Berlin, Germany.

2013 Self directed residency: Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany. Access to ornithology collections.

Board Memberships

2016/18 CAVES Inc Artist Run Initiative Board member

2014/17 Liquid Architecture Sound Inc Board member

2010/11 KINGS Artist Run Initiative Board member

Selected Professional Creative Engagements

2010/24 Arts Consultant, small to medium not for profit organisations and individual artists

2009/14 General Manager, Liquid Architecture Festival of Sound Arts

2007/08 Event Producer, Liquid Architecture Festival of Sound Arts
2006 Curator, Queen Victoria Women’s Centre

Project Assistant, Venice Architecture Biennale proposal w/ Andrew McKenzie