Creative Research Symposium
Tuesday — Wednesday, 29-30 July 2014
Drama Studio, Y3A Macquarie University
Day 1: Strategies and Futures
Participants: Faculty of Arts Creative Research staff, HDR and MRes students and alumni.
Day 2: Research Skills and Career Development: a day for Supervisors and Students.
Invited Speakers
 Prof. Jane Davidson, University of Melbourne
 Prof. Jen Webb, University of Canberra
 Prof. Ross Harley, College of Fine Arts (COFA) University of NSW
Day 1: Strategies and Futures
Day 1
9.45 am
Welcome
Assoc Prof. Mark Evans and
Prof. Catriona Mackenzie
Session 1
10 am
Developing institutional
capacity and excellence
Chair: Prof. Kathryn Millard
Speaker: Prof. Ross Harley
Session 2
11 am
Insights from the ERA
Panel: Lessons learned and
Strategies for the future of
Creative Practice Research
Lunch
Chair: Prof. Julian Knowles
Speaker: Prof. Jane Davidson
Our ERA: understanding the
data
Chair: Dr Hsu-Ming Teo
Speaker: Prof. Julian Knowles
Writing ERA statements:
capturing your research in
250 words.
Workshop Facilitators:
Dr Jane Messer and Dr Kate Rossmanith
Plenary
Action Plan: Building
capacity and excellence in
the Faculty of Arts
Convenor: Prof. Catharine Lumby
12 pm
Foyer Y3A
Session 3
1 pm
Session 4
2.30-3.30
pm
Poster exhibition: current
Creative Research projects
in the Faculty
Day 2: Research Skills and Career Development: for Supervisors and Students
Day 2
9.45 am
Welcome and overview of
Macquarie’s Creative
Research HDR
Achievements
Prof. Nick Mansfield, Dean,
Higher Degree Research, and
Dr Andrew Alter, Acting Assoc.
Dean HDR
Session 1
10-11 am
Australian Creative
Doctoral Programs
Chair: Dr Marcelle Freiman.
Prof. Jen Webb
Developing excellence in HDR Creative
Practice Research: the 2012 ALTC study of
creative doctoral programs, theses and
examination practices and its implications for
best practice.
Session 2
11 am-12 pm
Developing a Quality
Research Trajectory in
Creative Practice
Career development in
the University and/or
Media and Arts Industries
Hear from emerging and
established creative
researchers.
12 pm
Foyer Y3A
Lunch
Session 3
12.45-1.45
pm
Supervision Enhancement
Program
Supervisor
Training
Session
Chair: Dr Jane Messer
Panel
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Prof. Jen Webb
Prof. Julian Knowles - Music
Dr Maree Delofski – Film
Dr Rebecca Giggs, Early Career
Researcher (ECR) – Writing
Dr Virginia Madsen – Audio
Dr Sandy Evans, ECR – Music
Dr Julie-Anne Long, ECR – Dance
Convenors: Prof. Jen Webb and
Dr Marcelle Freiman
An interactive workshop for creative research
supervisors. Attendance at this session
satisfies supervisors’ annual training
requirement.
Speakers’ Biographies
Prof. Jane Davidson is Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of
Excellence for the History of Emotions and Professor of Creative and Performing Arts (Music)
at The University of Melbourne’s Faculty of the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and
Victorian College of the Arts. Prior to this, she was Callaway/Tunley Chair of Music at The
University of Western Australia and before that, Professor of Music Performance Studies at
the University of Sheffield.
Davidson has written more than one hundred scholarly contributions on performance,
expression, therapy and the determinants of artistic abilities. Her edited volume The Music
Practitioner (Ashgate, 2004) explores the uses of research for the practising musician.
Current research projects include: the expressive body movements of duettists; the adaptive
value of music, including singing and personal identity; the development of ‘talent’; the
function of music in mental health settings; the music performances of the Temple Street
musicians in Hong Kong; the process of music theatre directing, and the staging of
Baroqueworks.
Prof. Ross Harley is Dean of Arts at The College of Fine Arts (COFA), UNSW and an artist,
writer, and educator in the field of new media and popular culture. His video and sound work
has been presented at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, New York MoMA, Ars Electronica in
Austria, and at the Sydney Opera House. Ross is well known for directing the audio/vision for
the Cardoso Flea Circus videos and live performances with Colombian-born artist Maria
Fernanda Cardoso. Recent work includes Aviopolis (with Gillian Fuller), a multimedia project
and book about airports, Black Dog Publications, London; Busface, a photo-media installation
with the Ejecutivo Colectivo exhibited at ArtBasel, Miami; and the DVD installation
Cloudscope in collaboration with Durbach | Block architects at Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney.
Prof. Jen Webb's academic interests focus on the relationship between the field of artistic
production and the wider social domain, including how representations are made in art,
creative writing and other cultural texts. Previous projects have investigated the connections
between creative practice and human rights; globalisation; and the links between creative
practice and scholarship.
This research has resulted in a variety of outputs, both creative and critical. Books include
titles on the works of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu, and on the topics of globalization,
visual culture and representation, as well as the collection of poems, Proverbs from Sierra
Leone (Five Islands Press) and the short story collection Ways of Getting By (Ginninderra
Press). She is currently writing a book titled Understanding the Body (with Dr Jordan
Williams, for Sage Publishers), and Research Methods in Creative Writing, for P&H Press.
She is the recipient of a number of ALTC and ARC research grants, with current projects
including investigations with Dr Paul Magee (Uni of Canberra) and Prof. Kevin Brophy (Uni of
Melbourne) into the links between creative practice and knowledge, with particular attention
to poetry, and to how poets approach the joint questions of knowledge and prosody.
With Dr Caroline Turner (ANU): art and human rights in Asia: with a particular focus on the
post-11 September 2001 world. With Professor Donna Lee Brien (CQU) and Dr Sandra Burr
(UC): examination practice in creative arts doctoral studies. Webb is co-editor of the journal
Axon: Creative Explorations and the Sage book series Understanding Contemporary Culture.