In 2025, the AIAH (Australian Institute of Art History) at the University of Melbourne collaborated with AAANZ (Art Association of Australia and New Zealand) to foster new and innovative research and public engagement in art history by early career professionals. Two grants were awarded to the value of $10,000.
GRANT RECIPIENT
$10,000 funded by the Australian Institute of Art History
Louise Rollman and Isabel Rousset, ‘Translating the Vienna School: Dr Gertrude Langer in Australia’s Asia-Pacific context’
Project Summary
This research examines how Western models of global art history proposed by the Vienna School were applied by Viennese-born Australian art historian Dr Gertrude Langer (1908–84). Through Langer’s teaching and writing in post-war Brisbane, itreveals complex dynamics between theoretical frameworks developed in Europe and their application within an Asia-Pacificcontext. Having studied with Josef Strzygowski—an influential yet controversial precursor to global art history—Langerintroduced cross-cultural approaches to Australian art discourse. Addressing gaps in the historiography of the Vienna School,the project highlights the often-overlooked contributions of its female scholars and their diasporic influence.
GRANT RECIPIENT
$10,000 funded by the Australian Institute of Art History
Miguel Gaete, Christin Neubauer and Elisabeth Ansel, ‘Remapping the Anthropocene: Colonial legacies and global ecologies in the visual arts (1800–2025)’
Project Summary
Remapping the Anthropocene is an interdisciplinary, bilateral research project that investigates how visual culture has shapedand reflected understandings of environmental change from the Romantic period to the present. Centred on the collaborationbetween scholars from the University of Melbourne and the Research Group Europäische Romantik oder Romantiken inEuropa? at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the project brings together art historians, environmental humanities scholars,climate researchers and early career researchers to explore how images have contributed to both scientific knowledge andpolitical imaginaries of the environment. Rather than treating the Anthropocene as a contemporary phenomenon alone, thisproject situates it within a longer genealogy of visual representations of ecological crisis, resource extraction, and human-nonhuman relations. Through the analysis of art, illustration, photography, and visual media, Remapping the Anthropoceneinvestigates how visual regimes have mediated ideas of climate, land, air, water, minerals, and nonhuman life over time. The project is designed to support students and ECR through an international hybrid workshop to be held in Melbourne,organised by Early Career Researchers and Art Historians Miguel Gaete (Melbourne), Elisabeth Ansel and ChristineNeubauer (Jena). Outputs will also include a book proposal and an open international call for chapter contributions fromscholars working across the sciences, humanities, and cultural studies.