Dr Ver贸nica Tello
PhD, Art History/Visual Culture, University of Melbourne, 2014
Senior Lecturer, Histories of Contemporary Art and Visual Culture
I am a historian predominantly听focusing on transnational politics and archives of art and visual culture and curating in/out of the Pacific, Chile, Australia and Latin America. I鈥檓 interested in understanding how global capital and class structure the historiography of art and the politics of epistemology and how memory can activate cultural, social, and political change.听
I have developed two books:听听(Radical Aesthetics Radical Art series, Bloomsbury Philosophy, 2016), focuses on the protracted 鈥榞lobal听refugee crisis' from the 1990s to the present across听Australia, the UK and the Americas. It analyses how contemporary artists archive, activate and counter-memorialise contested migratory histories in contexts marked by intensified border politics. While national landscapes brim with monuments, 'counter-memorial aesthetics' opens up numerous tactics to understand the various ways that often invisible and/or听erased migratory histories pass through us and have the potential to reshape us, time and again.听My second book,听 (2023, and Third Text Publications), develops听a moving conceptual vocabulary of the aesthetics, politics, economies, histories and potentialities of the Global Souths in collaboration with artists, writers and curators such as Dylan AT Miner, Carla Macchiavello,听James Nguyen,听Zoe Butt,听Salote Tawale, Rolando L贸pez, Jennifer Biddle,听Ruth Simbao, Rachel O'Reilly, Walter Mignolo, and many others.
I am currently developing a monograph on the international exhibition history of听Chilean experimental art (including but not limited to the听escena de avandaza)听during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990). This project focuses on how certain art exhibitions archived early forms of neoliberalism and its resistance within Chile and the then-emergent 鈥済lobal contemporary鈥 art world. The project maps eccentricity, refusal, and the strike as counter-neoliberal strategies that gave way to an alternate, if not also shadowy, notion of being contemporary.听
In addition, with Salote Tawale and Ien Ang, I am leading the Australian Research Council Linkage听project focussed on how collections and archives can catalyse听epistemological experiments and听equity (or structural change)听within Australian regional art museums. The project, entitled听is developed in partnership with Murray Albury Museum of Art (MAMA) and听embraces the potential of the 鈥榩arallel鈥 or the 鈥榩ara鈥 as a way of being adjacent to, beyond or distinct from the structural formations that are typically the case in Australian art institutions.
I am the Editor in Chief of the published by Taylor & Francis and the Sydney editor of .
Recent publications:听
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- Publications
- Media
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Engagement
- Teaching and Supervision
2021-2024: Australian Research Council, Linkage, Australian Regional Art Museums, Resettlement and Structural Change, with听Ien Ang (Western Sydney Uni) and听Salote Tawale (USyd)听and听Murray Art听Museum Albury.
2020: Australia Council for Arts - Individual and Group Project funding, Australian Exhibition Histories: Margins and Institutions: Art in Chile after 1973 (1986)听
2019-2021:听PLuS Alliance Research Fellowship, Latin American Art Networks听
2015-2018:听国产精品 Vice-Chancellor's听Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Decolonial Futures and Contemporary Art
2015:听Bundanon Trust Writer鈥檚 Residency, Counter-Memorial Aesthetics: Refugee Histories and the Politics of Contemporary Art听
My Research Supervision
PhD
June Miskell (art history/theory) - Archipealogic thinking and Filipinx contemporary art (with Mina Roces and Astrid Lorange)
Teresa Hunter-Hicks (art theory/history)听鈥撎齃abour,听Collaboration and Collectivity in听Australian and North American Poster Collectives (1968-1991) (with Diana Baker Smith)
Angela Goddard听(curatorial, practice-led research) - World Making Strategies and Curatorial Support Structures in Australia (with Felicity Fenner and Lizzie Muller)
Jade Muratore (practice-led research) - Queer histories and para-fiction (with Diana Baker Smith, Rochelle Haley and Grant Stevens)
Anabelle Lacroix (curatorial, practice-led research) - Insomniac aesthetics, desynchrony and the museum (with Caleb Kelly)听
Completed
Aneshka Mora (art theory/history)听鈥撎鼶ecolonialisation and Institutional Critique in Contemporary Australian Art (with Bianca Hester)
James Nguyen (practice-led research)听鈥撎齅aking听Ch贸 b貌*: Troubling Vi峄噒speak:听Collaborating, translating, and archiving with family in听Australian contemporary art听(with Jennifer Biddle), 2021.
Meredith Birrell (art theory/history)听鈥揟he Fugitive Self: Posthuman subjectivity in the Essay-Films of The Otolith Group, Hito Steyerl and Ursula Biemann, 2020.
MFA
Lisa Myeonjoo 听(with Diana Baker Smith)
Evgenia (Jenny) Anagnostopoulou, Untitled (topic: curatorial experiments and the global souths) (with Diana Baker Smith)
Completed
Lu Forsberg, Counter-Surveillance, Extractivism and Eco-Aesthetics听(with Diana Baker Smith). 2022
Amber Hammad, Speculative History and Critique of Gender in/out of Pakistan听(joint with Diana Baker Smith). 2022
Elena Gomez,听Admit the Joyous Passion of Revolt: Gender, Labour and Inter-generationality in Marxist-feminist poetics, (joint with Astrid Lorange). 2019
Amy听Prcevich, Experiments with temporality of 'office work'听 (with Diana Baker Smith)听
HONOURS (ART HISTORY/THEORY)
Completed
Nicola Marshall, Gossip as Archival Method in Post-War Lebanese Contemporary Art, 2020
June Miskell,听Embodied听Knowledge And Collective Survival: Dance And Community In The Work Of Bhenji听Ra, 2019.
Evgenia听Anagnostopoulos,听Crisis and The Curatorial: Tracing Emergent Forms Of Institutional Activity in Athens,听2018.
Melissa Mills,听Performing and Contesting the Archive in Sites of Crisis, 2018.
Aneshka Mora,听Indigenous and Migrant Solidarity in Contemporary Australian Art, 2017.
Hannah Waters,听Visualising Necropolitics: Renzo Martens' Enjoy Poverty and Abbas Kiarostami's ABC Africa,听2017.
My Teaching
I convene the following courses within the Bachelor of Fine Art - across art history/theory, curatorial and studio:听
- Australian Art,听1st year level (Art History/Theory)
- Global Contemporary Art,听3rd-year level (Art History/Theory) and Masters of Curating and Cultural Leadership
- Contemporary Art and Research Methods,听4th year/Honours level (Studio and Theory)
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