Susan Ballard is an art historian from Aotearoa New Zealand who works at the intersection of visual culture and the environmental humanities. Her research is concerned with the ways in which art, media, and writing address environmental transformation in the context of the Anthropocene. Recent essays in Energies in the Arts, The Anthropocene Review, Environmental Humanities, and Art and Australia discuss contemporary art, energy, geology, and the aesthetics of place. With the MECO network she co-wrote 100 Atmospheres: Studies in Scale and Wonder. Su is the co-director of the C3P Research Centre for Critical Creative Practice at the University of Wollongong, Australia.
RCC Research Project: Planetary Thinking in Contemporary Art Writing
Selected Publications:
- with Louise Boscacci, David Carlin, Anne Collett, Eva Hampel, Lucas Ihlein, Jo Law, Joshua Lobb, et al. 100 Atmospheres: Studies in Scale and Wonder. London: Open Humanities Press, 2019.
- with Liz Linden. “Spiral Jetty, Geoaesthetics, and Art: Writing the Anthropocene.” The Anthropocene Review 6, no. 1–2 (April 2019): 142–161.
- “Joan Brassil: ‘The Energy of the Life Game.’” In Energies in the Arts, edited by Douglas Kahn, 309-329. Massachusetts and London: MIT Press, 2019.
- “Earth Projects: Joyce Hinterding and David Haines’ Geology.” Art+Australia 54, no. 2: 20-27 (theme: Unnaturalism).
- “New Ecological Sympathies: Contemporary Art and Species Extinction.” Environmental Humanities 9, no. 2 (November 2017): 255-279.
- “Signal Eight Times: Nature, Catastrophic Extinction Events and Contemporary Art.” Reading Room: A Journal of Art and Culture 7 (August 2015): 70-94 (theme: Risk).