Bianca Durrant

Statement

Bianca Durrant is a Melbourne based Australian contemporary artist, with an exhibition history that interrogates the culture of collecting and the canons of art history. As institutional critique, and through an installation-based practice, exhibitions engage audiences to respond to objects, artworks and textual materials to reconsider our assumptions about cultural artefact, ownership, institutions and narrative. Residencies and creative developments have included accessing natural history museum collections, creating full scale mock museums and archived collections, and large scale wall drawings based on theory texts and collection data points.

Trained in fine arts and completing a Master of Arts (by research) in 2008, Durrant has maintained an exhibition practice since 2001, alongside engaging in professional practice and curatorial work for organisations, producing the work of Australian and international artists. Contributions to arts organisations include through board roles with artist run initiatives CAVES Inc and KINGS ARI, and as General Manager, Liquid Architecture – Festival of Sound Arts.

GlogauAIR Project

Through 2024 and as part of the GlogauAIR residency, Durrant will be developing a new body of work, extending their conceptual exploration of museums and collecting. The artist’s fascination with the politics of display delves into a deeper critique of the artistic process, merits of display methodologies, audience engagement and the relationship of text to object as presented within the contemporary gallery paradigm.

This new series Collectio Specere (working title) will focus on extending ideas around the fetishisation of the art object, or museum artifact, and museum ‘narrative’. In both producing the objects and then documenting, preserving, displaying and interpreting, Durrant asks audiences to consider both artistic production (labour) through the evidence of process, and the inscribed meaning of objects scrutinised through a museological lens (through the institution, and the viewer) through replicating a museum style viewing environment. Through studio development, text, scale and multiples will be harnessed as key mechanisms to explore these concepts.

Drawing, Installation, New media, and Photography

CV Summary

Education

• Bachelor of Fine Arts 2001, Monash University
• Master of Arts Curatorship (2023), The University of Melbourne
• Master of Fine Art (by Research) 2008, Monash University
• Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours 2002, Monash University

Gallery