Ellen Kent

Lecturer in Indonesian Studies
Lecturer

Dr Elly (Ellen) Kent is a lecturer in Indonesian studies at UNSW Canberra. She has worked as researcher, writer, translator, artist, educator and intercultural professional over 20 years in academia and the arts in Indonesia and Australia. 

Elly sits on the Committee of Management of The Asian Arts Society of Australia (TAASA) and on the board of the Australian National University's Indonesia Institute (where she was formerly Deputy Director). Elly is the author of Artists and the People: Ideologies of Indonesian Art (2022) NUS Press, and co-editor (with Virginia Hooker and Caroline Turner) of Living Art: Indonesian Artists Engage Politics, Society and History (2023) ANU Press.

Elly’s research focuses on contemporary and historical art, design and cultural practices in Southeast Asia, and especially in Indonesia. She is interested in the intersection between social change, politics and art practice and her doctoral research focused on participatory practices and ideologies in Indonesian art.

MEDIA RESEARCH ENGAGEMENT
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In 2018-2019 I was invited to contribute to an inter-institutional curatorial advisory group that worked with the National Gallery of Australia to develop the Contemporary Worlds: Indonesia exhibition, in recognition of my expertise in contemporary Indonesian art of the past 20 years.

I co-convened an associated international conference, Contemporary Worlds: Indonesian Art hosted by the ANU, and presented a paper. The conference included presentations from scholars from Southeast Asia and Australia, placing early career academics and their emerging research in dialogue with the region’s most senior historians, curators and artists. The above-mentioned co-edited book Living Art: Indonesian Artists Engage History, Society and Politics (ANU Press, 2022) was conceived in response to this event and features chapters from many of the speakers.                      

I am an academic peer-reviewer for the Southeast of Now Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art journal (NUS Press) and the Australia New Zealand Journal of Art (Melbourne University). In 2020 I was invited to mentor an early career Filipino researcher to develop a journal article in the Southeast of Now Emerging Writers Fellowship Programme. I also mentor participants in the Australia Indonesia Youth Exchange Program (AIYEP) 2020-22 (online).

 

Invited keynote and speaker addresses:

My most recent speaking engagement is an invitation to address the Asialink Leaders Forum in November 2021. In this presentation I will address the scale of declining support for Asian studies at all levels of the education sector and in our national collecting institutions, and the impact this has on national brand in Asia. This audience for this address will include business leaders from wide range of organisations including BP, ANZ Bank, Austrade, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, BHP, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries QLD,  EY, Global Victoria, KPMG, Swisse Wellness, SYSPRO, TedxSydney and Trade and Investment Queensland.

I recently gave a one-hour hybrid (in-person and online) presentation on my research and forthcoming book for the Indonesia Project’s (ANU Crawford School of Public Policy) Indonesia Study Group at ANU, which is available to view on the Indonesia Project’s website.

My proposal to convene a webinar titled “Art and Artist in Society in Indonesia: Future Tense” for the ANU Indonesia Institute’s webinar series was accepted by the board and is published on the Institute’s website. I am a current and founding board member of the ANU Indonesia Institute (launched 2018); I emceed the Institute’s launch in 2018 and the keynote speakers’ presentation at our major conference in 2019.

During my doctoral studies I attended and presented papers at 17 international and national conferences, symposia and forums in Australia and Indonesia, in two languages. In 2014, my paper for the International Conference for Asia Pacific Arts (ICAPAS) Symposium was awarded ‘Best Paper’. I have maintained this commitment to collegial academic public speaking and engagement, convening conference panels (ASAA 2018 and 2021), presenting papers and co-convening symposia and post-graduate workshops (Transnationalism in Asian Art, HRC, ANU 2017, Australian National University, 28 September 2018. ANU Humanities Centre 2017, ANU Indonesia Institute 2018).

In 2019 I was invited as a guest lecturer to Universitas Katolik Atma Jaya’s MBA program, speaking on Contemporary Art and Business in Indonesia. In 2018 I was invited to speak at the Balai Bahasa’s annual dinner in Canberra (Indonesian Embassy), and as a guest lecturer in the ANU Centre for Art History and Theory’s course on Contemporary Asian Art. During my postgraduate studies I was invited to speak in both English and Indonesian at seminars and symposiums in various capacities, including a Global Development Based Tri Hita Karana Symposium held at Bentara Budaya, Bali by the Institut Hindu Dharma Negeri Denpasar in 2013, at the Education Forum (Bincang Edukasi) at Bandung Creative City in 2014, and at the Social Identities: Lived Experience and its Mediations in a Mobile Indonesia Symposium at ANU in 2015. 

Television/video:

Appearance on Bloomberg TV’s Brilliant Ideas: Heri Dono (Episode 23, March 12th, 2016)

Video interview Beyond the Self: S. Teddy D. Published by National Portrait Gallery

AWARDS
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Entanglement: Individual and Participatory Art Practice in Indonesia

2013-06 to 2014-06 | Prime Minister's Australia-Asia Postgraduate Award (outgoing)
Department of Education and Training (ACT, ACT, AU)

 

Department of Education and Training: ACT, ACT, AU

Total funding amount: AUD 63,500

Description:

This funding supported an extended period of in-country field research, hosted by the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB), contributing to my doctoral research project. My PhD addressed approaches to art practice that are simultaneously individual and participatory. It comprised a research-based dissertation that sets out to understand why combined practices are so prevalent among contemporary Indonesian artists (66.66 ̇%), and a practice-led body of work that investigates the nexus between individual and participatory modes in my own art practice, accompanied by an exegesis (33.33 ̇%). This is the first body of research to address combined individual and participatory art in Indonesia. The exegesis addresses the conceptual background, intentions, research methodologies and results of this practice-led research into the nexus between individual and participatory modes of practice. This research eventually resulted in the publication of my book, Artists and the People: Ideologies of art in Indonesia (NUS Press, 2022).

2013 - 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art Emerging Artist Prize.

https://archive.4a.com.au/tag/elly-kent/

GRANTS
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'All of Us' translation and publication in Indonesia

2020-05 to 2022-12 | Australia-Indonesia Institute Grant
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government (ACT, ACT, AU)
Part of GRANT_NUMBER: D20/1272019
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government: ACT, ACT, AU

Total funding amount: AUD 20,940

Description

This project facilitated the translation (into Indonesian), publication and distribution of a first edition of the recent children's book 'All of Us', in collaboration with the book’s authors,original publishers HarperCollins, and prospective publisher, Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia.

The Slideshow Project

2017 to 2018 | Grant

artsACT (ACT, ACT, AU)

URL: https://soad.cass.anu.edu.au/research/slideshow-project-2018

GRANT_NUMBER: 2017PROJ012

Total funding amount: AUD 10,000

Description:

Curator: Associate Professor Patsy Payne
Producer, project manager: Dr Elly Kent
Artists: Elly Kent, Rose Montabello, Heidi LeFebvre, Karen Golland, Ali Jane Smith, Hanna Bath
The Slideshow Project commissioned artists and a curator to produce work in response to vintage slides of travel in East and Southeast Asia. An exhibition was held at ANCA Gallery in Canberra in March 2018, accompanied by a catalogue, artist and curator talks and education programs.
Outcomes:
An exhibition at ANCA Gallery in Canberra in March 2018, exhibition catalogue, artist and curator talks, education programs.

Organization identifiers

FUNDREF: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001126

artsACT: ACT, ACT, AU

Entanglement: Individual and Participatory Art Practice in Indonesia

2011-09 to 2015-01 | College of Arts and Social Sciences PhD Scholarship

Australian National University (Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, AU)

URL: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/117054

Total funding amount: AUD 87,500

Description

This scholarship funded 3 years equivalent full-time study for my doctoral research. My PhD addressed approaches to art practice that are simultaneously individual and participatory. It comprises a research-based dissertation that sets out to understand why combined practices are so prevalent among contemporary Indonesian artists (66.66 ̇%), and a practice-led body of work that investigates the nexus between individual and participatory modes in my own art practice, accompanied by an exegesis (33.33 ̇%). This is the first body of research to address combined individual and participatory art in Indonesia. The exegesis addresses the conceptual background, intentions, research methodologies and results of this practice-led research into the nexus between individual and participatory modes of practice. This research eventually resulted in the publication of my book, Artists and the People: Ideologies of art in Indonesia (NUS Press, 2022).

 

 

AREA OF EXPERTISE
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I am an internationally recognised historian of modern and contemporary art history, theory and practice in Southeast Asia, a practicing artist and highly experienced and sought after translator (Indonesian>English). My research focuses on creative art and design practices that directly involve communities through creative, educational and critical social-change oriented projects. I am also a practicing artist with 15 years of experience in delivering art projects which involve individuals and communities in creative practice as a tool for understanding the world around them. I have worked in museums and galleries as an educator, researcher and public program designer, and I have spent over a decade living, working and studying in Southeast Asia. I am the author of  Artists & the People: Ideologies of Indonesian Art (NUS Press 2022) and author and co-editor (with Caroline Turner and Virginia Hooker) of Living Art: Indonesian Artists Engage Politics, Society and History (ANU Press 2023).

Organisational units
lensSchool of Humanities and Social Sciences
Sub Theme
lensSoutheast Asian Social Inquiry