Sarah Scott is a lecturer in art history and theory.  Her co-edited publication Crosscurrents in Australian First Nations and non-Indigenous Art was  published by Routledge in 2023.

Emiritus Professor Terry Smith has endorsed the book commenting: ‘Truth-telling and reconciliation between First Nations and those who have since arrived has become the priority for all Australians. . .Non-Indigenous artists, curators and critics have responded in a variety of ways. The complexities of these exchanges are explored in unprecedented depth and detail in this book.'

This edited volume includes Sarah's solo authored chapter  'Aesthetically Similar but Politically Far Apart: The Art and Designs of Bill Onus and Byram Mansell during the Assimilationist Era.' This contrasts the life of Yorta Yorta activist and designer Bill Onus  (in consultation with his grandson Tiriki Onus) with the settler designer Byram Mansell pointing out that Onus's Aboriginal Enterprizes was an act of cultural resistance and revival whilst Mansell's appropraitions of Aboriginal art tended to support an assimilationist agenda prevelant during the 1950s and 1960s.  The book also contains a co-authored introduction concerning Cross-Currents. 

Sarah is curently working on a solo authored book examining both the representation of Australian First Nations people and appropriation of ther art within Australian Settler modernist art which will inciude discussion of Russell Drysdale, Violet Teague, James Cant, Byram Mansell and others.  

Her research supports her teaching of a new course first offered in semester one 2023 and also offered in 2024 entitled: CrossCurrents in Australian First Nations and non-Indigenous art  (ARTH2176). This included guest lectures from Australian First Nations artists, curators and researchers. In previous years she has assisted Professor Brenda L. Croft in teaching ARTH2098 Australian First Nations Art and Culture.

IN 2012 she was awarded a Rydon Fellowship to work on how Australian art was represented internationaly and this interest in exhibition history continues. Prior to her appointment at ANU, Sarah was a Lecturer in the School of Creative Arts and Humanities at Charles Darwin University (Darwin) for three years. She has also taught at Swinburne School of Design (Melbourne), the University of Melbourne (Art History and Australian Studies) and the Tasmanian School of Art.

PhD (Uni of Melb.) MA (Courtauld, London) BA (Hons.) (Uni of Tas.)

Crosscurrents between Australian First Nations and non-Indigenous art and culture. 

Australian Modernist Art and its representation both within Australian and in a global context

Exhibition history

Art Patronage

Australian First Nations Art and Culture