The AAANZ 2025 conference committee are delighted to announce internationally and nationally acclaimed keynotes.
Ken Arnold is Director of Medical Museion and Professor in the Department of Public Health at University of Copenhagen (also part of CBMR). This world-class university museum combines innovative public exhibitions and events with adventurous and collaborative research in medical humanities. Until 2022, he was also Head of Cultural Partnerships at Wellcome – the London-based charitable foundation focused on health research. Earlier, he helped lead the establishment of Wellcome Collection and directed its first decade of programming. He regularly writes and speaks on museums – today and in the past – and on the interactions between arts, humanities and sciences.
Brenda L Croft is from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra Peoples, Victoria River region of the Northern Territory of Australia, and has Anglo-Australian/Chinese/German/Irish/Scottish heritage. For four decades Brenda has undertaken a leading role in national & international First Nations & broader contemporary arts/cultural sectors as a multi-disciplinary creative practitioner (academic, administrator, artist, curator, educator, researcher, scholar). Brenda’s creative-led research encompasses Critical Indigenous Performative Collaborative Autoethnography & Storywork methodologies & theoretical frameworks. For over three decades Brenda has worked closely with her patrilineal family & community, with Australian First communities nationally, & international First Nations/Indigenous/People-of-Colour colleagues.
As an academic, artist, curator & project manager Brenda’s work with Australian and international First Nations/Indigenous communities spans more than four decades. These connections grew from her father, Joseph Croft’s cultural work in the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs & Aboriginal Development Commission in the 1970s – 80s, & ongoing independent cultural work & First Nations/Indigenous advocacy until his death in 1996.
In 2024 Brenda was the Gough Whitlam & Malcolm Fraser Visiting Chair of Australian Studies, Harvard University, being the inaugural First Nations female academic to be selected for this prestigious program, initiated in 1976, living & working on the Ancestral Homelands of the Massachusett for the year. Brenda is Professor of Indigenous Art History & Curatorship at the Australian National University, privileged to live and work on unceded sovereign Kamberri/Ngambri/Ngunawal/Walgalu homelands.
Image caption Canberra, Australia. July 23, 2023: Aboriginal Australian artist, curator, writer Brenda L Croft at home in Canberra. Picture: Martin Ollman
Khaled Sabsabi’s process involves working across art mediums, geographical borders and cultures to create immersive and engaging art experiences. He sees art as an effective tool to communicate with people, through a familiar language. Sabsabi makes work that questions; rationales and complexities of nationhood, identity and change. His practice speaks to audiences in ways that interconnect the interrelatedness and cycles of daily life.
Dr. Mikala Tai works independently as a writer, curator, researcher and academic in the creative industries. She was the Head of Visual Arts at Creative Australia from 2020-2025 and previously the director of the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney.
王庆松 毕业于四川美术学院，1993年至今生活工作在北京，于1996年开始影像创作。在国内外诸多美术馆和画廊举办过40多个个展，参加过光州双年展、台北双年展、悉尼双年展、上海双年展、威尼斯双年展、伊斯坦布尔双年展、基辅双年展等多个国际双年展。2019在武汉合美术馆及韩国首尔摄影美术馆举办个展。2006年获得Outreach Award in Rencontres de le Photographie，法国阿尔勒杰出摄影奖。曾组织策划长江国际影像双年展及成都“金熊猫摄影艺术奖”等展览，现担任成都当代影像馆艺术总监。
作品被美国纽约国际摄影中心、纽约现代美术馆、盖蒂美术馆、旧金山现代美术馆、澳大利亚昆士兰美术馆、日本森美术馆、水户当代美术馆、巴西国家美术馆、法国巴黎欧洲摄影中心、奥地利MUMOK美术馆、澳大利亚维多利亚国家美术馆、英国维多利亚阿尔伯特美术馆、韩国大邱美术馆、中国中央美术学院美术馆、广东美术馆、湖北美术馆等60多家公立美术馆收藏。
Wang Qingsong Graduating from Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Wang Qingsong is among the leading Chinese contemporary artists. He lives and works in the artists village in Caochangdi, and has exhibited his large scale photography in more than forty solo shows in museums and galleries around the world. His works often assemble large casts of people to play out scenes from Wang’s imagination, offering detailed and careful allegories for life in China, and the twenty-first century more generally. Wang has participated in the Gwangju Biennale, Taipei Biennial, Sydney Biennale, Shanghai Biennale, Venice Biennale China Pavilion, Istanbul Biennial and Kiev International Biennial among others. He is collected in Australia by both the Queensland Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Australia, as well as internationally. He is also a central figure in the Chinese artworld, organizing and curating the Changjiang International Photography and Video Biennale and Chengdu “Golden Panda Photography Award” exhibitions, as well as being the artistic director of the Chengdu Contemporary Image Museum.
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