We establish opportunities for meaningful engagement
The Creative Arts Research Institute (CARI) was established in 2021 to support the growth of research in the creative arts and design. Celebrating a diversity of creative endeavours, CARI establishes opportunities for meaningful engagement with industry and communities, through local and international partnerships, towards a culture of excellence, rigour and risk-taking in arts-based research. We share this work in our communities of practice, through our cultural institutions, and through a variety of creative and written publications.
Interdisciplinary artistic research offers new innovative perspectives and creative pathways forward, advancing solutions for many of the most complex questions of our time. CARI members actively collaborate across Griffith University through the Climate Action Beacon and the strategic multi-disciplinary initiatives Inclusive Futures and Disrupting Violence.
CARI is a place for imagining, making, and thinking in the arts. Grounded in our disciplinary expertise, our researchers disrupt, perform, communicate, share, collaborate, create and envision within and through the arts. Our members include Fulbright Scholars, Australia Research Council Future Fellows, Australia Council Grant recipients, National Library Fellowship recipients and receive funding from other competitive sources.
CARI members undertake Consultancies and produce Commercial Research in collaboration with partners such as Adelaide Festival Centre, Enabler Interactive, QPAC, Queensland Holocaust Museum, Screen Queensland, Warner Bros, National Institute of Dramatic Art, and Queensland Rail.
Director
Professor Vanessa Tomlinson
Vanessa’s bold research vision places artmaking at its centre. She celebrates embodied knowledge alongside traditional research and demonstrates strong support in mentoring researchers and developing new research training approaches. Vanessa has a deep and ongoing engagement with art-science interdisciplinarity evidenced through her work with Bloom Collective, including presentations at Ephemoral Arts Festival (Sokolowsko, Poland), residency at Eco-Science Precinct, Boggo Road, and ongoing engagement with the Griffith University Climate Action Beacon.
For the past 20 years, Vanessa has worked with her ensemble Clocked Out, making and touring work internationally and has developed a deep cultural relationship with Sichuan Province in China. She was part of the ARC project Making Music Work, and has received further grants through the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Queensland, Brisbane City Council, and DFAT. Her work has received awards from Myer Foundation, Helpmann Chamber Music Award, as well as two Green Room Awards, a Vice-Chancellors Research Excellence Award, an Aria nomination, and seven APRA/AMC Awards. She has published two books Here and Now: Artistic Research in Australia (Intelligent Arts) and The Piano Mill (URO Publications). She has also been artist-in-residence at The Smithsonian Institute, Civatelli Ranieri, Bundanon National Trust, Harrigans Lane Collective and Asialink (China).
Executive
Deputy Director Research
Professor Susan Best QCAD
Professor Susan Best is an art historian with expertise in critical theory and modern and contemporary art. She is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and her book Visualizing Feeling: Affect and the Feminine Avant-garde (2011) won the Australian and New Zealand Art Association prize for best book.
Deputy Director Research
A/Prof Peter Hegedus GFS
Associate Professor Peter Hegedus is a filmmaker with over 20 years of industry experience. Peter’s work is characterised by a commitment to social justice, exploring human stories that shed light on identity, community, place and belonging. Peter’s work has been shown at major Film Festivals around the world.
Deputy Director Research
Dr Alexis Anja Kallio QCGU
Dr Alexis Kallio is a specialist in the politics of music education, with a particular focus on diversity and equity issues in university, school, and community settings. Her research examines how musicians can inform and support preventative, and strengths-based approaches to youth justice.
Creative Arts Research Institute Manager
Louise Johnson
Louise Johnson graduated with a BA(Hons) in Art History and Master of Museum Studies from UQ, and a Master of Project Management from SCU. Her postgraduate research focussed on the links between feminist ideology and new museology, specifically post-structuralist investigations into identity and power.
Industry Advisory Board
Industry Advisory Board
Industry representation:
- Dr Chetana Andary, Senior Principal, Middle East UAP (Chair)
- Mr Troy Casey, Director, Blaklash Creative
- Dr Lawrence English, Director, Room 40
- Professor Phil Graham, Professor Emeritus, University of Sunshine Coast
- Ms Virginia Hyam, Head of Programming, Home of the Arts
- Dr Heidi Edmonds, Senior Project Manager (Queensland Projects), Beyond Zero Emissions
- Mr Benjamin Richards, Director, Apothecary Films
Griffith University ex-officio representation:
HDR Interns
Flora Wong (QCGU)
Olivia Rea (GFS)
Olivia is a PhD Candidate and illustrator whose research explores visual communication of the fantasy genre, with a focus on aesthetics, art direction, and the game Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition. She has been teaching in the Griffith Bachelor of Animation Art Direction stream since 2019 while working as a freelance illustrator, mostly in the table-top role-playing game field. Olivia has a deep passion for fantasy arts, anything whimsical or fairytale, and the craft of visual storytelling.
Timothy Tate (QCGU)
Timothy Tate is an Australian creative technologist, researcher, composer and performer who makes use of obsolete consumer and recording technologies — magnetic tape, floppy disk drives, primitive audio sampling devices, CD Players, CRT displays — which he circuit-bends and uses in combination with his own hand-built electronics, to create notated compositions, immersive live performances, experimental electronic instruments and site-specific work.
Contact us
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Acknowledgement of Country
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of this Country on which we live and work. We recognise their continuing connection to place and culture, and pay respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.