Professor Brian Martin
Professor Brian Martin is the director of Wominjeka Djeembana Indigenous Research Lab. Brian is a descendant of Bundjalung, Muruwari and Kamilaroi peoples.
In 2022, Brian was awarded a three-year appointment to the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts where he’ll play a key role in identifying research excellence, assessing funding applications and providing strategic advice to the ARC.
Brian is represented by William Mora Galleries. He has been a practising artist for thirty years and has exhibited both nationally and internationally specifically in the media of painting and drawing. His research and practice focuses on refiguring creative practice and culture from an Indigenous ideological perspective based on a reciprocal relationship to “Country”. Brian was the inaugural Associate Dean Indigenous at Monash University Art, Design and Architecture and previously Professor and Head of Research at the Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin University. He is also Honorary Professor of Eminence at Centurion University of Technology and Management in Odisha, India, Board Director National Theatre Melbourne, Board Member for Shepparton Art Museum and the Melbourne Art Foundation.
Additional research
Brian Martin, The Agency of Bunggabi (trees)
This work is a collection of charcoal drawings articulating the agency and importance of Country. These Countryscapes are a presentation of Bunggabi (trees) with a shield that floats across the surface. The shield, from Boonwurrung Country and Museum Victoria’s collection, links our own relationality to Country and Bungabbi.
Brian Martin, The Agency of Bunggabi (trees)
Through research in the collections at Melbourne Museum with Boonwurrung traditional owner N'arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM we connected to multiple cultural materials that are made from Bunggabi, including shields, coolamons, canoes and musical instruments, to name a few. It is significant to connect cultural material with contemporary practices as it revitalises our ancestral past and demonstrates that Indigenous cultures are about the interconnectedness between memory, practice and Place.
Brian Martin, The Agency of Bunggabi (trees)
This work is part of Moving Objects, commissioned by RISING, Museums Victoria and YIRRAMBOI and made possible by the Metro Tunnel Creative Program.
Brian Martin, Methexical Countryscape - Bundjalung 1
Brian Martin, Methexical Countryscape - Kamilaroi 10
Brian Martin, Methexical Countryscape - Kamilaroi 11
