ACUADS Award Recipients

 NOTE  Pre-2005 Award recipient data are being compiled and will be made available soon.

 
Discipline Leader – Gold & Silversmithing, School of Art, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

Robert Baines joined RMIT in 1980 as a Lecturer in Goldsmithing. Robert has gained international prominence in two research disciplines of Artist Goldsmith and Archaeometallurgy. His critical primary research has been recognised by the receipt of a Senior Fulbright Award and three senior Research Fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Robert has consistently fostered a research culture at RMIT.

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Program Director Visual Arts & Acting Director Visual Arts, School of Contemporary Arts
Faculty of Communications and Creative Industries, Edith Cowan University

Clive Barstow has been exemplary as a Program Director in the organisation of the undergraduate course in the School of Contemporary Arts and was the Edith Cowan University nominee for the national Teaching Awards in Canberra 2002 as well as earning the Vice Chancellor's Excellence in Teaching Award Medal in 2001.

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Since 1981, Dr Eugenie Keefer Bell has made an outstanding contribution to tertiary art and design education in Australia. She has held lecturing positions in Tasmania, Western Australia and, since 2001, at the University of Canberra School of Design and Architecture.

Teaching an extraordinary range of subjects in Art, Design and Architecture, she is an accessible, motivating and innovative academic, who encourages and demonstrates the pursuit of excellence at all levels of education and professional practice.

She is the recipient of several Australia Council grants and fellowships for her creative practice, and has published widely on crafts, design and architecture.

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Professor Neil Brown has been a consistently outstanding leader in the tertiary art and design education research environment for more than twenty years.

As an internationally renowned and leading researcher in new media aesthetics, philosophical realism and creativity in art and design education, Neil recently retired as Associate Dean (Research) and Co-Director of the Centre for Interactive Cinema Research (iCinema), from The University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts.

Neil's distinguished and sustained research career in art and design education is characterised by a range of firsts, initiatives and innovation, first as inaugural Head of the School of Art Education, then his appointment as Associate Dean (Research) and then as Co-Director of iCinema.

Neil also has had an exemplary record of successful leadership and advocacy for visual arts, new media, crafts and design through numerous public forums and consultancies.

Professor Neil Brown has made an outstanding contribution to both applied and empirical research in art and design.

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School of Art & Design, Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong

Associate Professor Diana Wood Conroy has been a consistently outstanding achiever in the tertiary art and design education research environment for more than ten years. Her recent achievements encompass gaining nationally competitive research and exhibition grants and negotiation of an international career as an archaeologist, artist and writer.

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Helen Ennis has been a member of the academic staff of the ANU, School of Art since 1995. She has been a popular and successful teacher of postgraduate coursework students and undergraduate students at all levels, and she has successfully supervised Higher Degree research students to achieve MPhil and PhD awards. She is a generous and supportive colleague, and has made an exemplary contribution to the research environment of the ANU. Her research output is nothing short of astonishing in both quality and quantity: she has a national and international reputation as an historian and curator of photography.

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School of Art, University of Tasmania

Jonathan Holmes joined the Tasmanian School of Art in 1973 and has an international reputation for his commitment to scholarship in the visual arts, craft and design. He chaired the school's research committee for the decade to 2004 and has received significant ARC and Australia Council funding for projects and has substantial curating, writing and publishing credits.

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Senior Lecturer & Program Director – Bachelor of Visual Communication (Honors)
South Australian School of Art, University of South Australia

Fred Littlejohn is a most deserving candidate for the Distinguished Teaching Award. He has developed a professionally focused university design program which consistently produces graduates who are able to respond creatively to the continually changing needs of the industry.

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Associate Professor Allan Mann has been committed to the visual arts and the teaching of visual arts in Australia since 1976. He has held academic appointments across three states at inland higher education institutions and has held elected appointments with national and local art organisations. He has been a devoted advocate for the visual arts and for Australian visual arts practice; art research; the teaching of the visual arts and to the continued development of the creative arts in general, within the Australian higher education sector. Associate Professor Allan Mann is held in high esteem by his colleagues and, most importantly, his students.

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Chris Orchard is a senior, genuinely gifted teacher. Evidence of this is obvious from the popularity of his classes, the consistently glowing feedback from student surveys, the constant demand for his involvement in a wide range of School and community activities and the exceptionally high regard that he has from all staff that have worked with him. Moreover he has maintained an unflagging commitment to a rigours practice in England and the US as well as Australia. For all of these reasons together with warmth and personal charm he has been an almost perfect mentor and role model for students for over thirty years. I have never met anyone more deserving to be honoured with an ACUADS Distinguished Teaching Award than Chris Orchard.

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Anna Platten's commitment to teaching has been exemplary. The body of knowledge she holds is unique in the Australian context of visual art training. As a nationally collected artist Anna brings extraordinary skill and incisive intelligence to the development of students of painting and drawing; indeed her classes at Adelaide Central school of Art are consistently oversubscribed. She is one of the most respected visual artists and teachers in Australia.

From 1989 to the present Anna Platten has crafted an elegant, rigorous and challenging programme of high level professional training in painting, sought out by undergraduate students and experienced practitioners alike.

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Olga Sankey has made an outstanding contribution to teaching at the South Australian School of Art through her roles as Head of the Printmaking Studios and Program Director of the Bachelor of Visual Arts Honours. As well as inspiring students through her generous teaching and her commitment to her own printmaking practice, she also led the development of an innovative Honours curriculum that incorporated the one to one supervision practices of a traditional honours program into a community of practice fostering each student's individual creativity while engaging them in rigorous critique and discussion of each others work. Olga's generosity in sharing her expertise and her commitment to excellence in her practice and her teaching, has inspired not only her students but her colleagues as well. She has made a significant contribution to visual art education and contemporary art practice in South Australia.

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Associate Professor Robyn Stewart has made a long and sustained contribution to research in the creative arts and for more than sixteen years, has been at the leading edge of the development of the practice-led research environment nationally and internationally. As an internationally recognised researcher and educator Robyn has worked with postgraduates and staff in art schools in Canada, the UK and Australia in the development of understandings of what constitutes research for practising artists across the arts, and the consequent descriptors for methodologies to articulate their praxis. As part of this process Robyn has contributed papers to many conferences, nationally and internationally, and her research has been published widely as refereed articles and book chapters in Australia and the UK.

Her consultancies include member of Faculty review committees in the creative arts and humanities for a number of Australian institutions, review of RHD program design and development at a Canadian university, examiner of many HDR submissions for universities across Australia, and advisor to colleagues in other universities on practice-led research methods and pedagogies. Her monograph on practice-led research methods for the arts is close to completion. She has been an active member of CHASS since its involvement with the creative arts sector.

Robyn's professional leadership has been characterised by a range of initiatives. She was the first woman to be elected to Academic Board at USQ, the first to be appointed as head of Visual Arts in Australia and consequently the first female voice in 1987 as a member of NCHADS, and subsequently the first woman elected to the NCHADS executive. She was an elected member of USQ's Governing Council for 3 terms (as the first academic woman at USQ to be so elected). Robyn was the first woman in the university to be appointed Faculty Director of Research at USQ and was responsible for brokering recognition of practice-led research within and across the institution. In this capacity she relentlessly championed research in the creative arts both within and outside the university, building a strong cohort of higher degree students to model this process.

Robyn's leadership contributions to national and international research in the arts also include President of the Australian Institute of Art Education, membership of the InSEA World Council and Chair of the highly successful InSEA 30th World Congress in Brisbane in 1999 where she was recognised by the award of the Sir Herbert Reid Medallion for contributions to Australian arts education. Robyn is currently a leading researcher and mentor as the Associate Director of the Public Memory Research Centre at USQ. She is a principal researcher in the industry funded Cultural Communities Project for the Queensland Murray Darling Committee.

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Associate Professor Rod Taylor's contribution to the visual arts and art education, in a career spanning 30 years, has been extraordinary. As the Founder and Head of School for the Adelaide Central School of Art, Rod has championed and overseen the development and integrity of a curriculum whose emphasis is primarily based upon a rigorous and structured studio practice.

Rod Taylor's commitment and energy to these principles has seen Adelaide Central School of Art acknowledged nationally as a model of its kind. The testimony of staff and graduates, the quality of the work produced and their achievements over 25 years, are all tributes to the career of Rod Taylor.

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John Teschendorff has had an outstanding career as an art educator, artist and art administrator spanning four decades. Beginning as a lecturer in the Department of Sculpture and Ceramics at Melbourne State College in 1974, John went on to various academic appointments including Head of The Department of Art at Curtin University and Professor, Senior Associate Director and CEO of the Limkokwing University College in Kuala Lumpur. In 1987 he was also an executive member of the then heads of schools council that created ACUADS.

John's involvement in SE Asia did much to establish the reputation for Australian visual arts excellence in the region, which in the early nineties resulted in the establishment of the Australia Indonesia and Malaysia Visual Arts Craft and Design Research Group.

John's lifetime contribution to the evolution of contemporary ceramic practice in Australia SE Asia and his passion for teaching has seen many of the students he has worked with go on to stellar careers as artists, educators, writers and arts professionals in Australia and overseas.

As an artist John has been recognised both nationally and internationally and exhibits regularly through one-person shows and curated group exhibitions. His works are found in numerous public and institutional collections in Australia, UK, USA, Israel, Thailand and Malaysia, and last year a series of large commissioned drawings were installed in the Chapel at All Saints College in Perth.

John continues to maintain an important part time presence in teaching, HDR supervision and curriculum development at Curtin University in Perth.

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Professor David Williams has been a guiding figure in tertiary art education over the past quarter century.

As Director of the Canberra School of Art since 1985 and Chair of the Australian Council of University Art & Design Schools (ACUADS) for five years, he has been at the forefront of all the major debates concerning the art and design discipline. Professor Williams has been a catalyst for bringing together the sector to address the issues that impact on our ability to present a professional education within the University system.

Due in large part to David's energy and commitment, ACUADS was created in 1987 and he has had an ongoing involvement with the organisation to the present day.

Professor Williams has served as Director of the Crafts Board of the Australia Council; Chair of the ACT Arts Development Board and Cultural Council, and as a member of the VACB International Committee and Asialink Visual Arts Committee, and was part of the inaugural Queensland Art Gallery's Asia Pacific Triennial curatorial team among many other key positions.

Professor Williams has been a mentor and supporter of generations of young academics and his generosity and encouragement for developing careers has had a significant impact on the quality of the profession, the high benchmarks set for graduates and the consistently improving standards in tertiary education in the visual arts, craft and design.

Professor Williams has made an exceptional contribution to the professional standing of Art, Craft and Design education both in Australia and internationally.

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As a researcher in the field of Visual Arts over the past twenty years, Dr Zeplin has demonstrated outstanding leadership in the area of Asia Pacific and intercultural arts in a way that transcends ordinary scholarship; she has achieved this by her ethical and committed engagement with communities and artists in the region. Her often pioneering research is at all times coupled with a deeply developed ethos on equity and collaborative practices. Dr Zeplin's infectious humour together with her proven ability to mentor other researchers has elicited descriptions such as 'inspirational' and 'inclusive'. As an advocate for the arts on a very human level across a complex and innovative range of cultural manifestations, Dr Zeplin is an exemplary example of a researcher and arts educator.

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