Guest Speakers

ASTRI WRIGHT

Keynote Speaker
Art Historian ~ Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
http://finearts.uvic.ca/historyinart/faculty/astri_wright_bio.shtml

Astri Wright's background is Norwegian-American-Australian. Her Norwegian University Cand. Mag. degree in English Literature/Language, Art History and Chinese was combined with a BA in Chinese Art History at Cornell University in the USA. After studies in the People's Republic of China, she returned to Cornell University for a PhD in Southeast Asian Studies and Art History.

Wright's research interests focus on the modern and contemporary arts and visual cultures of Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on Indonesia. Themes of interest include the dialogue between Southeast Asia and Euro-American modern and post-modern cultures; the visual scripting of history, personal and communal; issues of politics and gender in negotiating social change through artistic activity; tradition, faith, and their contesting in the shaping of Southeast Asian art and artist careers.

After publishing the first scholarly monograph on contemporary Indonesian painting in English in 1994, Soul, Spirit and Mountain: Preoccupations of Contemporary Indonesian Painters, Wright's writings have focused mostly on activist and socially-engaged artists in Indonesia, and women artists in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. She has written for a broad range of audiences, from academic publications to commercial art publications and the daily press. Wright is currently an Associate Professor in the History in Art Department at the University of Victoria, BC, teaching South and Southeast Asian art since 1991.