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Chaitanya Sambrani

AsPr Chaitanya Sambrani

Convenor, Higher Degrees by Research, School of Art and Design; Associate Professor, Centre for Art History and Art Theory

20012025

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Qualifications

MA (Fine): MSU, Baroda; PhD: ANU, Canberra

Research Interests

Modern and Contemporary Art in South and Southeast Asia

Art and nationhood; art practice and belonging

Transnational and cosmopolitan histories of art 

Contemporary art's relationships with traditional practice

Biography

I am an art historian and curator working on modern and contemporary art in Asia, especially in relation to tradition, marginality and politics.  My curatorial projects include Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India (shown at museums in Australia, USA, Mexico and India over 2004-07); Place.Time.Play: Contemporary Art from the West Heavens to the Middle Kingdom (contemporary art exchange between artists from China and India, Shanghai, 2010); To Let the World In: narrative and beyond in contemporary Indian art (Art Chennai Festival of Art, 2012) and All that Arises, a mid-career survey of the work of Lao-Australian artist Savanhdary Vongpoothorn (Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra, 2019), After the Assemby: Constituting India (as curatorial advisor, SOAS, London 2025) and Avatar: Forms of Vishnu (co-curator, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 2026, forthcoming). 

Current research supervisions

Gillian Daniel (Art History and Curatorship) "Topographic Imaginaries: Envisioning the Natural World in the Straits Settlements" (Chair and Primary Supervisor)

Lolita Manukian (Art History and Curatorship) "The Motherland: Women Myth and Power in Art and Visual Culture" (Chair and Primary Supervisor)

Completed research supervisions

Lucy Irvine (Sculpture and Spatial Practice, 2025), "Emergent Knowledge Practices: Interweaving new spatial, material and relational strategies for pedadogical and interdisciplinary research" (Chair of Panel, previously Primary Supervisor)

Shanti Shea-An (Painting, 2024), “Reading/Painting: A Practice-led Inquiry into Textuality, Legibility, and Translation in Contemporary Painting” (Associate Supervisor)

Soo-Min Shim (Art History and Curatorship, 2024) "Borders and Belonging: New visions of relationality and community by contemporary Korean artists in Australia and New Zealand" (Chair and Primary Supervisor)

Lucie Folan (Art History and Curatorship, 2024), "Manifestations of Merit: tracing the history, creation and meaning of Jain sacred-site images (tirtha pata)" (Chair and Primary Supervisor)

Jeremy Lepisto (Sculpture and Spatial Practice, 2023),"Containers of Consequence: The shipping container and its unintended deliveries" (Chair and Primary Supervisor)

Bec Bigg-Wither (Photomedia, 2023), "Air to Ground: Apollo 11's Fiftieth Anniversary" (Associate Supervisor)

Francis Kenna (Art Theory and Printmedia, 2021), "Feeling Spaces: grounding the body through architectural atmosphere" (Chair; Chair and Primary Supervisor)

Phil Page (Painting, 2018) "The Form and Content of European Cities as Paintings" (Associate Supervisor)

Safrizal Shahir (Printmedia, 2017), "Gravestones as mirror: a visual discourse on Batu Aceh" (Associate Supervisor)

Fiona Peng Qian (Ceramics, 2016) "A Site for Hybrid Practice: Between Traditional Culture and Contemporary Ceramic Art" (Art Theory Supervisor)

Ian Jones (Art Theory and Ceramics, 2016), "Wabi-cha and the Perception of Beauty in Japanese Ceramics" (Chair and Primary Supervisor)

Tim Thomas (Photomedia, 2014) "The Articulation and Rearticulation of Space in the Photographic Paradigm" (Associate Supervisor)

Robert Guth (Photomedia, 2012) "Engaging audiences to value and invest in participatory art practice through reciprocal and relational interactions" (Associate Supervisor)

Nicola Dickson (Painting, 2010) "Wonderlust: the influence of natural history illustration and ornamentation on perceptions of the exotic in Australia" (Art Theory Supervisor)

Johanna Hoyne (Sculpture, 2009) "Commitment, Devotion and Belonging in the World with particular reference to the work of two Indian contemporary artists" (Art Theory Supervisor)

 

Education/Academic qualification

Art History and Curatorship, PhD, Nation-Tradition-Modernism: Indian Art in the 20th Century, The Australian National University

Award Date: 12 Jul 2006

External Scholarly Memberships and Affiliations

Curatorial Advisor, School of Oriental and African Studies

12 May 202415 Aug 2025

Curatorial Advisor, Powerhouse Museum

2022

Curatorial Advisor, Art Gallery of New South Wales

10 Aug 2020 → …

Honorary Professor, Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB)

28 Nov 201931 Dec 2020

Curatorial Advisor, National Gallery of Australia

20182019

Research student supervision

  • Registered to supervise

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