Margaret Plant Lecture Series

The Margaret Plant Annual Lecture in Art History Series

Emeritus Professor Margaret Plant OAM

The Margaret Plant Lecture in Art History is an annual lecture in Art History and Theory, celebrating the ongoing influence and immeasurable cultural contribution of Emeritus Professor Margaret Plant OAM.

Margaret Plant, celebrated academic and author, is Emeritus Professor of Visual Arts at Monash University and has a long and distinguished history with the University. She was a Professor of Visual Arts (1982-96) and has been Emeritus Professor from 1996 onwards. In 2025 she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for service to visual arts, and to art history.

Plant began her teaching career in 1962 as a tutor in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne in 1962. In 1968 she became Senior Lecturer in the History of Art at RMIT University; the first academic appointment of an art historian at an Australian art school.

We are honoured and proud to continue the Margaret Plant Lecture in Art History at Monash University, building on her tremendous legacy as a source of inspiration for artists, curators, writers, art historians and theorists.

Established at Monash University in 2018, the Margaret Plant Annual Lecture in Art History is coordinated by the Art History and Theory program in the Department of Fine Art, Monash Art, Design and Architecture in collaboration with Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA.

Learn more

Read more about the launch of the lecture series.

Past events

Marsha Meskimmon: 'Sol y Sombra: On the Shimmering Opacity of Planetary Aesthetics'

This lecture takes the figure of ‘sun and shade’ as a starting point from which to engage with the intellectual and aesthetic legacies of the European Enlightenment and, in particular, with the structural violence of ocularcentrism underpinned by the binary hierarchy of light over dark(ness).

Andrea Bubenik: 'Follow the Snail: Serious Jokes and Play in Renaissance Art'

This lecture will explore conceptualising Renaissance play, through games, wit, and jokes, and explore the subversive potential of early modern prints and broadsheets stemming from central Europe circa 1450-1700.

Erika Wolf: 'Galina San’ko: The Unwomanly Face of Soviet War Photography'

This lecture examines the work of the Soviet war photographer Galina San’ko (1904-1981). The title refers to Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War, an oral history of the estimated one million Soviet women who served at the front during WW2. After the war, these women and their wartime experiences were largely forgotten and ignored, with the war largely recounted by men in terms of the experiences of men.

Ming Tiampo ‘Who Am I Here?’: Diasporic Reflections on Settler Colonialism, Nation and Planet

Ming Tiampo, Professor of Art History and co-director of the Centre for Transnational Cultural Analysis at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, presents ‘“Who Am I Here?”: Diasporic Reflections on Settler Colonialism, Nation and Planet’ – Monash University’s annual Margaret Plant Lecture in Art History for 2021.

Christina Barton: Writing Billy Apple

Christina Barton gave a presentation on Billy Apple: Life/Work, at the 2nd Monash University Margaret Plant Annual Lecture in Art History.

James Meyer: The Double: Return and Reenactment

In this talk, Meyer drew from his book, The Art of Return: The Sixties and Contemporary Culture (University of Chicago Press) and discuss how movements of the “long Sixties” – including antiwar, civil rights, and feminism – are represented in contemporary American art by artists such as Mary Kelly, John Malpede, Mark Tribe, and the collective BLW (Rosalinda Borcila, Sarah Lewison, and Julie Wyman).