Our third Access Ideas and Insights panel for 2023 featured an expert panel who explored the many exciting ways we might create and engage with art.

Discussing how artists and organisations are innovating access and inclusion with new technology, leading artists and technologists Thea-Mai Baumann, Louise Zhang and Amy Claire Mills explored where we are now, and what the future holds for creating truly “accessible” art. Through delving into multi-sensory experiences, thrilling tactile work and entirely virtual exhibitions, this exciting panel discussion encourages you to ponder essential access requirements as well as the fantastical possibilities of an inclusive future.

This event has now passed, however you can watch the recordings below. There are three versions, including captioned and Auslan interpreted recordings.

The Future of Art – Panel Discussion

 

The Future of Art – Captioned

 

The Future of Art – Auslan Interpreted and Captioned

   

 

The accessible hybrid platform for this event was managed by Pyrus Event Services – a specialist event production partner that crafts elegant and inclusive experiences for virtual and hybrid events.

About the Speakers

Thea-Mai Baumann

Thea-Mai Baumannis a creative executive, artist, technologist and producer of Vietnamese-Swiss heritage. She joined 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art as Artistic Director and Chief Executive Officer in February 2023. Between 2019-2022, she was Manager and Senior Manager of International Engagement at the Australia Council for the Arts where she co-designed and led the launch of the International Engagement Strategy 2021-25, and provided oversight of strategic investments in Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific. Between 2012-2019, Thea was CEO and Founder of world-first hologram brands Metaverse Makeovers® and 超宇美人® based between Melbourne, Shanghai, and Hong Kong where she led the commercialisation of augmented reality innovation @MetaverseNails.

Louise Zhang

Louise Zhang 张露茜 is a Chinese-Australian multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture and installation. Zhang explores the dynamics of aesthetics, contrasting the attractive and repulsive in order to navigate the senses of fear, anxiety and a sense of otherness reflecting her identity. Her work is inspired by horror cinema, Chinese mythology and botany, adopting and placing symbols and motifs in compositions of harmonic dissonance.

Amy Claire Mills

Amy is a Sydney-based emerging artist living and working on unceded Gadigal and Wangal land. Her art practice explores identity and self-preservation through immersive installations and performance, by which she becomes both the artist and subject. Her practice critiques and examines the politics surrounding the female disabled body. Using distinctive, colourful and bold mediums her work encourages the observer to challenge their own paradigms and internalised preconceived bias, with the intention of deconstructing ableism.

Accessible Arts is proudly supported by Create NSW and this Hybrid Event Series has been made possible with support from the City of Sydney,  Art Gallery of NSW and Pyrus Events.

ENDS

Image Description: Headshots of the three panelists (from left to right): Thea Baumann, Louise Zhang and Amy Claire Mills.