r. e. a. saunders

Most Recent Affiliation(s):

• Activist; Artist; Academic and Curator

Also Known as:

• r. e. a.

ISEA Bio(s) Available:

• ISEA2020

  r e a – is an artist / curator / activist / academic / cultural educator / creative thinker; from the Gamilaraay / Wailwan / Biripi (NSW) people of Indigenous Australia. r e a’s ongoing practise-led research takes its development from new and critical discourses exploring intersectionality and positionality, through the cultural convergence of Aboriginality; within the creative arts and technology, history and colonialism, the body and identity, gender and queer politics. r e a is an artist who’s experimental digital arts practice spans three decades of reinterpreting western theories of Aboriginality, reframing identity politics and repositioning new stories that challenge these ideas through a contemporary lens of art and history. r e a has a doctorate in Visual Anthropology, University of New South Wales, Art & Design titled: “‘Vaguely Familiar’: haunted identities, contested histories, Indigenous futures”; which includes a creative body of work that explores the actions of learning to listen to country and draws on a legacy of lived experiences, the impact of intergenerational trauma, grief and loss. In reclamation there is an acknowledgement of de-colonisation / disruption / protest / Indigenisation.

  ISEA2013

  r e a is an artist whose work transforms across a number of art forms and flows into a new-media interdisciplinary arts practice which examines: history, memory, body politics and language, and the construction of Indigenous [Australian] identity. She is a descendent of the Gamilaraay and Wailwan peoples of Coonabarabran in north-west New South Wales. In 1994 she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW, followed by a Master of Arts (Visual Art) from the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University and a Master of Science in Digital Imaging and Design from New York University. She has received numerous scholarships and grants throughout her professional creative and academic career, including a Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, a New Media Arts Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts, a Fulbright Scholarship, and recently an APA and R.E.A., from UNSW. r e a has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1992 and has been involved in a number of international and national residency programs since 1996. She has participated in the Live-I Workshops presented by Troika Ranch Contemporary Dance Company, New York City; and the Witness Relocation Master-Class (based in New York City) at Legs On The Wall, Sydney, supported by ACAPTA. r e a is currently undertaking her PhD in Visual Anthropology at the College of Fine Arts, University

Website:

• https://rea-noir.com/

Last Known Location:

• New South Wales, Australia

Video: