Prof Denise Ferris

Contacts

Professor, Head of School
School of Art & Design

Present ANU Appointment
2017 Professor, School of Art & Design

Academic Qualifications
2008 Doctor of Creative Arts (Research), Humanities & Social Sciences, UTS, Sydney
1985 Graduate Diploma, Visual Arts, Sydney College of the Arts

Research interests

Current Research

The absent narratives of the 1860's Chinese miners of Kiandra, a visual and textual interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary project with history, archaeology, visual arts and museum practice

Main Research Interests: Visual

Photographic representation of the non-heroic sublime focused on affect, environmental change, aesthetics and place in a site-specific landscape of human intervention

The visual articulation of ideas realised through 'alternative', non-silver, photographic techniques e.g. milk/casein printing with sunlight

Main Research Interests: Writing

Examining maternal representations and photographic representation of childhood. Loss, erasure and social responses to climate change and their representation in photography.

Groups

  • Ferris, D 2018, 'Truly, Madly, Deeply: Sharing Story on the Bundian Way', in Marie Sierra and Kit Wise (ed.), Transformative Pedagogies and the Environment: Creative Agency Through Contemporary Art and Design, Common Ground Research Networks, Champaign, IL, pp. 97-114pp.
  • Ferris, D 2016, 'Conspicuous consumption: photographs of pleasure and loss, personal and public, in an Australian snowfield.', in Marion Arnold and Marsha Meskimmon (ed.), Home/Land, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, pp. 89-100pp.
  • Ferris, D & Waller, R 2015, Encounter & Immersion.
  • Ferris, D 2015, Navigations Chiang Mai University Art Center (2015).
  • Ferris, D 2015, 'Photographing the Future, the convergence of a Victorian photographic album and a 1976 photographic book', Mamapalooza, 3rd Annual Conference, Mamapalooza, USA.
  • Ferris, D 2013, Once Upon an Island of White.
  • Ferris, D 2013, 'Evidence and Absence: Photography's limits to revelation', Labour Migration: race history & heritage, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
  • Jolly, M, Ferris, D & Riddell, A 2013, Utopia within, across & beyond the University, p. 6.
  • Ferris, D 2013, Once Upon an Island Of White.
  • Ferris, D 2013, The Long Hot Summer.
  • Ferris, D 2013, Fairview on Stratford.
  • Ferris, D 2013, Untitled, On this Site, Bateman's Bay.
  • Ferris, D 2013, Raphaela Rossella.
  • Ferris D 2013, group exhibition, Lens Love, Canberra Museum and Gallery (curated by Director, Shane Breynard)
  • Ferris, D 2012, Celestial Spaces Pingyao International Photography Festival (2012).
  • Ferris, D 2012, Untitled (Winter).
  • Ferris, D 2012, Big Apple, Batlow, New South Wales, 1984.
  • Ferris, D 2012, Learning to ride.
  • Ferris, D 2012, 'Conspicuous Consumption: personal identity and collective relationship to place', Home Land, Home Land, Loughborough, United Kingdom.
  • Ferris, D 2012, 'Celestial Spaces: representing absence, evidence and the beautiful failures of photography', Visible Evidence XIX, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, Australia.
  • Ferris D 2012, group exhibition, Things: photographing the constructed world, National Library of Australia (curated by Helen Ennis)
  • Ferris D 2012, solo exhibition, Celestial Spaces: Pingyao International Photography Festival, China & Kiandra, NSW
  • Ferris D 2012, 'Spoilt Milk: Ambivalence and the Language of Casein', ed. Rachel Epp Buller, Reconciling Art and Mothering: Ashgate, Meredith Norwich pp
  • Ferris, D 2011, 'Moffat's Mothers: Bad, Mad, Sad, Loving and Glad', Mothers at the Margins Conference 2011, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
  • Ferris, D 2011, IV. Maternal Metaphors II, Doublebind - works by Denise Ferris.
  • Ferris, D 2011, 'So Much to Tell You: Affect, Beauty, Thought and Photography', Art Association of Australia and New Zealand 2011, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand, Wellington.
  • Ferris D 2011, 'Home Decorum' (eds) Myrel Chernick and Jennie Klein, The M Word, Real Mothers in Contemporary Art’, Demeter Press, Toronto
  • Ferris, D 2010, 'The Troubling Aspects of Truthfulness: Awful and Awesome Children in Contemporary Photography', Imaging Identity: Media, Memory and Visions of Humanity in the Digital Present, National Portrait Gallery & Humanities Research Centre ANU, Canberra.
  • Ferris, D 2008, 'Spoilt Milk: photography and the maternal'.
  • Ferris, D 2010, 'The Dilemma of Depicting Desire: maternal secret or public censure', in Andrea Ruthven and Gabriela Madlo (ed.), Illuminating the Dark Side: Evil, Women and the Feminine, Inter-Disciplinary Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, pp. 19-32.
  • Ferris D 2010,The Dilemma of Depicting Desire: maternal secret or public censure in eBook ' Illuminating the Dark Side: Evil, Women and the Feminine' Volume 141 of the At the Interface series 'Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness', edited by Andrea Ruthven & Gabriela Mádlo, ISBN: 978-1-84888-044-3
  • Ferris, D 2009, 'The Mother in Mr Chips: Educating Artists and Maternal Thinking', in Andrea O'Reilly (ed.), Maternal Thinking: Philosophy, Politics, Practice, Demeter Press, York University, Toronto, Canada, pp. 120-130.
  • Ferris, D 2008, 'transitory phenomena, ephemeral occurrences portfolio'.
  • Ferris, D & Jolly, M 2008, 'Collateral Damage', Art Monthly Australia (AMA), vol. 211, pp. 5-7.
  • Ferris, D 2008, Contemporary Landscapes in Photography Award, Contemporary Landscapes in Photography Award, Perth Centre for Photography, Perth, Australia.
  • Ferris, D 2008, Photo/Not photo, Photo/Not photo, Design Gallery, Faculty of Design and Creative Practice, University of Canberra, Australia.
  • Ferris, D 2008, The Fall of Night, Fall of Night, Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra, Australia.
  • Ferris, D 2008, Untitled (Parade exhibition), Parade: Manufacturing selves in photography, ANU School of Art Gallery, Canberra, Australia.
  • Ferris, D 2007, 'Book review: Photography: Art Gallery of New South Wales Collection', Art Monthly Australia (AMA), no. 206, pp. 48-50.
  • Ferris, D 2007, Myself by Myself, Myself by Myself, Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra, Australia.
  • Ferris, D 2006, Maternal Metaphors II, Maternal Metaphors II: Artists/Mothers/Artwork, Ohio University Art Galleries, Athens, USA.
  • Ferris, D 2006, weather report, weather report, Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra, Australia.
  • Ferris, D 2004, Vestment (Spoilt Milk portfolio), Surface Indicators, ANU School of Art Gallery, Canberra, Australia.
  • Ferris, D 2003, Home Decorum (Spoilt Milk portfolio), Home Decorum: New Work, UTS Gallery, Sydney, Australia.
  • Ferris, D 2003, Notes from a Watershed, Notes from a Watershed, Michaelis Gallery, Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, South Africa.