Prime Minister's award to fund China art adventure

An aspiring curator will travel to three cities in China to study how contemporary artists are using new media such as video and animation in their work.

Creative Industries PhD researcher Sarah Harper was one of 20 Australian postgraduate students awarded a 2013 Prime Minister's Australia Asia Award.

She will use the scholarship, given to the best and brightest university students from Australia and Asia, to further her PhD research at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in February, where she will participate in lectures, seminars and workshops over four months.

Ms Harper, who completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Visual Arts) and honours degree at QUT, will then complete a three-month internship at an art gallery in Beijing, as well as travel to the southern city of Guangzhou to meet new media artists.

"Chinese new media art is an up and coming area that has been gaining interest both locally and internationally over the past decade," she said.

"In the west, new media such as video and animation has been long accepted as an independent artistic medium.

"Interest in new media art in China is still rising and my PhD will explore that practice within the culture and social contexts of Chinese cities."

Ms Harper said she hoped to organise an exhibition in 2014 following the seven months spent in China.

The exhibition would feature new media works from artists in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, which would be broadcast onto large screens in urban centres in China and Australia, including QUT's Creative Industries Precinct at Kelvin Grove.

"Hopefully I'll be able to create an exhibition that will promote cross-cultural dialogue between cities in China and Australia," she said.

Ms Harper said she valued the chance to become immersed in Chinese language and culture.

"I'm so grateful for the opportunity the Prime Minister's awards have provided me," she said.

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Media contact: Stephanie Harrington, QUT media officer, 3138 1150, stephanie.harrington@qut.edu.au