Areas of expertise

• Visual Arts And Crafts 1905
• Lens Based Practice 190503
• Performance And Installation Art 190504
• Performing Arts And Creative Writing 1904
• Other Studies In Creative Arts And Writing 1999

Research interests

Biography

Researcher's projects

Publications

• Croft, B, 2019, 'Blackwoman', in Cordite, 89: Domestic, (ed. Dr Natalie Harkin), 1 February, 2019, http://cordite.org.au/poetry/domestic/blackwoman/, accessed 3 December, 2020
• Croft, B 2018, ''Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality'', in Jacqueline Millner, Catriona Moore (ed.), Feminist Perspectives on Art : Contemporary Outtakes, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, UK, pp. 69-78pp.
• Croft, B 2018, ‘Missing’, in Absolute Humidity (Ed. Tess Maunder), Hardbound, First Edition. (A Hardworking Goodlooking Book. Printer: Tito Acquino Noscal, Manila City, Philippines). Attribution: Non-Commercial-NoDeriv (CC BY-NC-ND), pp 34 – 45. (Essay originally published in Shards: Nici Cumpston, Yhonnie Scarce and Judy Watson, exh. Cat. SASA Gallery, UniSA, 30 September – 24 October, 2008, curated by Mary Knights)
• Croft, B 2018, 'home/lands', in Visualising Human Rights, Jane Lydon (ed.), UWA Publishing, Crawley, Perth, Western Australia, pp. 101-112pp.
• Croft, B 2018, 'Grounded (red, black, white)', triptych, exhibited in Genius loci, Canberra Glassworks, 5 April - 3 June; selected for Hindmarsh Prize, Fitters Workshop, Canberra Glassworks, 21 - 30 September; Toyama Glass Museum, Toyama, Japan, 26 October - 11 November
• Croft, B 2018, 'The Instability of Truth: Aspects of Developing a Specific Indigenous Methodology on Experimental Practice-led Research', Visual Anthropology Review, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 15-26.
• Croft, B 2017, 'home/lands', essay in Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality, (exh. cat.) UQ Art Museum, Brisbane, Qld, pp 19 - 31.
• Croft, B 2017, 'Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality', practice-led doctoral research exhibition, UNSW Galleries, UNSW, 5 May - 29 July. Curator, participating artist.
• Croft, B, 2017, 'shut/mouth/scream' (2016) (diptych), from the 'blood/type' series, exhibited in Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, 26 May - 10 September, 2017.
• Croft, B 2016 - 2017, 'shut/mouth/scream', (diptych) from the 'blood/type' series. Pigment print on archival paper. Exhibited in solo exhibition 'subalter/N/ative dreams', Stills Gallery, Sydney, 27 July - 27 August, 2016; 'Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial', National Gallery of Australia, 26 May - 10 September, 2017, then national tour
• Croft, B, 2016 - 2017, 'Wave Hill/Victoria River Country' (2016), 21 pigment prints on archival paper. Exhibited in ‘subalter/N/ative dreams’, Stills Gallery, Sydney, 27 July – 27 August, 2016; ‘Defying Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial', National Gallery of Australia, 26 May - 10 September, 2017
• Croft., B, 2016 - 17, 'Self-portraits on country, 2014' (printed 2016), 13 pigment prints on archival paper. Exhibited in solo exhibition 'subalter/N/ative dreams', Stills Gallery, Sydney, 27 July - 27 August, 2016; ‘tell: Ballarat International Foto Biennial’, 19 August - 17 September, 2017
• Croft, B 2016, subalter/N/ative dreams - solo exhibition, Stills Gallery, Sydney, 27 July - 27 August.
• Croft, B 2016, Retrac(k)ing country and (s)kin: walking the Wave Hill Walk Off Track (and other sites of cultural contestation), Westerly, Vol. 61, No. 1, pp. 76 - 82.
• Croft, B 2015, 'Signs of the Times', in Rosie Scott, Anita Heiss (ed.), The Intervention: An anthology, Concerned Australians, Salisbury, South Australia, pp. 162 - 178.
• Croft, B 2015, 'Say my name', in Celina Jeffery (ed.), The Artist as Curator, Intellect, Bristol, UK; University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA, pp. 115 - 130. https://issuu.com/tina9214/docs/celina_jeffery-the_artist_as_curato
• Croft, B 2015, 'Still in My Mind: An Exploration of Practice-led Experimental Research in Progress', Cultural Studies Review, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. pp. 230-248.
• Croft, B 2012, 'Revolutionize me (and you, and you, and you)' in Decolonize Me/Décolonisez Moi, (exh. cat.), Ottawa Art Gallery, Canada, pp 46 - 73.
• Croft, B 2011, 'Sell-abrasion of our nations', lead essay, exhibition catalogue, 'Stop(the)gap: international Indigenous art in motion', Samstag Art Museum and Port Adelaide Mill, Adelaide International Art Festival, guest curator (with curatorial advisors Kathleen Ash-Milby (USA), David Garneau (Canada) and Megan Tamati-Quennell (Aotearoa/New Zealand), Feb - March, 2011
• Croft, B 2007, 'To be young (at heart), gifted and blak: the cultural and political renaissance of Indigenous art in Australia', in H. Perkins and M. West (ed.), One Sun, One Moon: Aboriginal Art in Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, pp. pp285 - pp292.
• Croft, B 2007, 'Cannot buy my soul', in (ed.), Culture Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia, pp. x - xxvii.
• Croft, B 2007, Culture Warriors: National Indigenous Art Triennial, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia. Inaugural curator. Established the National Indigenous Art Triennial during tenure as Senior Curator, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, NGA, (2002 - 09).
• Croft, B 2006, 'Up in the sky, behind the clouds', in (ed.), Michael Riley: Sights Unseen, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia, pp. 17 - 43.
• Croft, B 2006, Michael Riley: Sights Unseen, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia. Curator.
• Croft, B 2006, 'Meeting, Not Colliding', Vision, Space, Desire: Global Perspectives and Cultural Hybridity, ed. Elizabeth Kennedy Gische, National Museum of the American Indian: Smithsonian Institute, USA, pp. 68-75.
• Croft, B 2004, 'What about the dots and circles?! The children need them!', Banff Centre for Continuing Education Conference, ed. Lee-Ann Martin, The Banff International Curatorial Institute, in association with Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre, Canada, pp. 108 - 127.
• Croft, B 2003, 'Textiles and tactility; object list', in (ed.), Tactility: two centuries of objects, textiles and fibre, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
• Croft, B & Jenkins, S 2003, 'Cultural life-force: ceremonial and traditional practices', in (ed.), Tactility: two centuries of objects, textiles and fibre, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, pp. pp9-pp11.
• Croft, B & Jenkins, S 2003, 'Representing the figurative', in (ed.), Tactility: two centuries of objects, textiles and fibre, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, pp. pp12-pp17.
• Croft, B & Jenkins, S 2003, 'Tactility: two centuries of objects, textiles and fibre', in (ed.), Tactility: two centuries of objects, textiles and fibre, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, pp. pp3-pp6.
• Croft, B 2003, 'Ink to Inkjet', in (ed.), South West Central: Indigenous Art from south Western Australia 1833 - 2002, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA, pp. 21 - 35.
• Croft, B 2003, South West Central: Indigenous Art from south Western Australia 1833 - 2002, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA. Curator.
• Croft, B 2002, 'Laying ghosts to rest', in (ed.), Colonialist Photography: Imag(in)ing Race and Place., Routledge, London UK; New York, USA, pp. 20 - 29. Previously published in Portraits of Oceania, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1997.
• Croft, B & O'Ferrall, M 2001, 'Indigenous art in the State Art Collection', in Indigenous Art: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, pp. 7 - 13.
• Croft, B 2001, 'Albert's Gift', in (ed.), Indigenous Art: Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, pp. 76 - 93pp.
• Croft, B 2000, 'beyond the pale: empires built on the bones of the dispossessed', in (ed.), beyond the pale: empires built on the bones of the dispossessed, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, pp. 8 - 14.
• Croft, B 2000, Beyond the pale: contemporary Indigenous art, Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, for the Adelaide International Arts Festival, Australia. Curator.
• Croft, B 1999, 'Boomalli: from little things big things grow', in Taylor, L. (ed.), Painting the Land Story, National Museum of Australia Press, Canberra, pp. 95-118.

Related websites

• http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/exhibitions/2016/croft/
  

  subalter/N/ative dreams, solo exhibition, July 27 to August 27, 2016, Stills Gallery, Sydney

  With a diverse career as an artist, researcher and independent curator, Brenda L. Croft has been creating multi-disciplinary, multi-platform work formore than three decades.In 2015 she received a National Indigenous Arts Award Fellowship from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts in recognition of her practice. For subalter/N/ative dreams, Croft worked closely with her family and community at Wave Hill and Victoria River regions in the Northern Territory and dislocated Gurindji community members elsewhere. Croft’s work considers the ongoing legacies of colonisation; how many Indigenous peoples were dispossessed of their language, ceremony and cultural connections and how the imposed language and culture has been used to define, constrict and displace Indigenous people within their own lands. In a brutally honest, immersive body of work, a series of self-portraits on country features Croft on traditional homelands and in displaced communities, looking straight down the barrel of the lens, defiantly present and unapologetic. Another series features images of the artist drawn from original wet collodian plates where she appropriates negative descriptors applied to her father and others in her immediate and extended family – full/blood, ABO, Native, half-blood, mixed-BLOOD, HALF-CASTE, quarter/caste, quadroon, ward, octaroon – to the other end of the spectrum, BRILLIANT, clever, scholar,  image challenges such debasing classifications used to subjugate Indigenous people now, as in the past, whilst also highlighting there is no single Indigenous way of being. In shut/mouth/scream, Croft’s face is dissected by the frame and starkly echoes an image of her paternal grandmother taken many years before during medical research. Trac(k)ed through the public archives, the latter image was located seven decades after it had been taken at Kahlin Aboriginal Compound in Darwin where Croft’s grandmother and father had been taken in the late 1920s. Its reclamation, through Croft’s visual call and response, is an angry howl at the abject treatment meted out not only to her grandmother and other family members, but to all Indigenous peoples impacted by authoritarian regimes, which continues to this day.

• https://vimeo.com/254803758
  

  Brenda L Croft, Lecture on Indigenous Practice-led research, 'Indigenous Perspectives', UTS

  Brenda L Croft, talks about critical performance, Indigenous auto-ethnography, cultural identity and creative narratives at the School of Design, UTS as part of our Indigenous Perspectives talk series on Friday 14 October 2016.

• https://vimeo.com/121372332
  

  THE INSTABILITY OF TRUTH: Aspects of Developing a Specific Indigenous Methodology on Experimental Practice-led Research

  A talk by Brenda L Croft (Gurindji) about her ongoing exploration of practice-led research from an auto-ethnographic, immersive, insider/ outsider standpoint in representing a specific Gurindji (Indigenous Australian nation) history, and the contemporary experience for those culturally affiliated with the Gurindji people – whether on customary lands or part of a broad diaspora within one’s own country. Croft’s research outcomes will include the creation of experimental, cross-disciplinary art through practice-led research and theoretical analysis.

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10TH 2014, 5:30PM
  Anthropology Department, Kriser Screening Room, 25 Waverly Place, NYU, New York

• https://vimeo.com/208776161
  

  'Everyone has a history - Part One: Plain Speak', Art Gallery of Western Australia, 'In my mother's garden', Plain Speak, Art Gallery of Western Australia, 23 February - 13 August, 2017. Artist talk by Brenda L Croft on her series 'In my mother's garden', uploaded 17 March, 2017

• http://www.dynamicsoflanguage.edu.au/news-and-media/latest-headlines/article/?id=still-in-my-mind
• http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/erasing-the-rowley-line/6552106
  

  AM, ABC RN AWAYE!

  Printmaking is an arcane and difficult art requiring mastery of multiple techniques: scribing, etching, blocking and inking. Lorena Allam visits Cicada Press in Sydney to meet some of Australia’s leading Indigenous artists as they learn the process. Every year, the Cicada Press studios at the University of NSW School of Art and Design holds an Indigenous printmaking workshop, inspired by the story of the Rowley Line.

  C. D. Rowley was a social scientist who wrote widely on the political and social status of Aboriginal people in the 1960s and ‘70s. Printmaking is precise and painstaking. It has its own rhythm and pace. Rowley drew the line across a map of Australia to mark the point at which ‘settled’ Australia gave way to ‘colonial’ Australia. Aboriginal people were divided on either side according to their blood quantum. The line still influences attitudes to Aboriginal people, particularly in the way Australia values and responds to Aboriginal art. The workshop is part of an effort to erase that imaginary line through collaborative art practice. 

  Printmaking is precise and painstaking. It has its own rhythm and pace, and it can take a lifetime to develop skills in and knowledge of all the different printmaking processes. Anyone who’s tried to explain aquatint (an intaglio technique where resin powder is blown onto a zinc plate using a crank or a bellows inside a wooden box) will know printmaking is an art form with many unusual and arcane techniques. The artists in this workshop are award winners, internationally-known, but here in the studio as a group they’re exploring new ways of creating.

• https://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/content/still-my-mind-gurindji-experience-location-and-visuality
  

  Still in my mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality, 2017 - 2021, national tour

  Curated by Brenda L Croft, in partnership with UNSW Galleries, UNSW Art and Design, Karungkarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation, UQ Art Museum, and supported by the Centre of Excellence in the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL), UQ.

  Inspired by the words of revered Indigenous leader Vincent Lingiari, ‘that land ... I still got it on my mind’, this collaborative exhibition reflects on the Gurindji Walk-Off, a seminal event in Australian history that reverberates today. The Walk-Off, a nine-year act of self determination that began in 1966 and sparked the national land rights movement, was led by Lingiari and countrymen and women working at Wave Hill Station (Jinparrak) in the Northern Territory.

  Honouring last year’s 50th anniversary, curator and participating artist Brenda L. Croft has developed the exhibition through long-standing practice-led research with her patrilineal community and Karunkgarni Art and Culture Aboriginal Corporation. Lingiari’s statement is the exhibition’s touchstone, the story retold from diverse, yet interlinked Indigenous perspectives. Still in my mind includes photographs and an experimental multi-channel video installation, history paintings, digital platforms and archives, revealing the way Gurindji community members maintain cultural practices and kinship connections to keep this/their history present.

• https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/4697/brenda-l-croft-heart-in-hand-7C-amala-groom-does-sh/
  
  • Virginia Rigney, exhibition reviewExchi2018, Rigney, Virginia, ‘Brenda L. Croft: Heart-in-Hand | Amala Groom: Does She Know the Revolution is Coming?’, Artlink: Human Flow, Issue 38:3 | September 2018, September2018, Rigney, Virginia, ‘Brenda L. Croft: Heart-in-Hand | Amala Groom: Does She Know the Revolution is Coming?’, Artlink: Human Flow, Issue 38:3 | September 2018, September2018, Rigney, Virginia, ‘Brenda L. Croft: Heart-in-Hand | Amala Groom: Does She Know the Revolution is Coming?’, Artlink: Human Flow, Issue 38:3 | September 2018, September2018, Rigney, Virginia, ‘Brenda L. Croft: Heart-in-Hand | Amala Groom: Does She Know the Revolution is Coming?’, Artlink: Human Flow, Issue 38:3 | September 2018, September 2018, Rigney, Virginia, ‘Brenda L. Croft: Heart-in-Hand | Amala Groom: Does She Know the Revolution is Coming?’, Artlink: Human Flow, Issue 38:3 | September 2018, September

  2018, Rigney, Virginia, ‘Brenda L. Croft: Heart-in-Hand | Amala Groom: Does She Know the Revolution is Coming?’, Artlink: Human Flow, Issue 38:3 | September 2018, September, https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/4697/brenda-l-croft-heart-in-hand-7C-amala-groom-does-sh/

  2018, Rigney, Virginia, ‘Brenda L. Croft: Heart-in-Hand | Amala Groom: Does She Know the Revolution is Coming?’, Artlink: Human Flow, Issue 38:3 | September 2018, September, https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/4697/brenda-l-croft-heart-in-hand-7C-amala-groom-does-sh/

• https://vimeo.com/183086404
  

  Brenda L Croft, 'subalter/N/ative dreams', Stills Gallery, Sydney, 27 July - 27 August, 2016. Artist talk

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oh24_ZBhKI&feature=youtu.be
  
  CASS Annual Public Lecture on Future Directions in Indigenous Research 2018. "Still in My Mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality" presented by Associate Professor Brenda L Croft. Recorded September 18, 2018.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG8-Hc_NdYU
  

  Still in my mind: Practice-led research and collaboration panel discussion, CDU Art Collection and Art Gallery, Charles Darwin University. Published November 14, 2018.

  This discussion centres on inter and intra-cultural collaboration which is a representational keystone of the exhibition 'Still in My Mind: Gurindji location, experience and visuality'. Representatives involved in 'Still in my mind' - as artists; as community members assisting in retracing the Wave Hill Walk-Off Track; as participants in history, language and song projects - discuss their distinct and interlinked roles across aspects of this multi-layered project.

  Panel speakers include exhibition curator, lead researcher and participating artist Brenda L. Croft, Maurie Ryan Japarta, Kathy Mills, Kerry Gibbs, Brian Manning Jnr, UQ's Dr Felicity Meakins and CDU's Dr Curtis Roman and Dr Matthew Storey.

• https://artguide.com.au/art-plus/visualising-human-rights
  

  'home/lands', in 'Visualising Human Rights', Art + Essay Excerpt in Art Guide Australia, 19 July 2019.

• https://www.portrait.gov.au/content/brenda-l-croft-and-dr-matilda-house
  

  BRENDA L CROFT AND DR MATILDA HOUSE: In Conversation

  National Photographic Portrait Prize 2020

  Brenda L Croft (Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra peoples) talks with Ngambri/Ngunnawal/Wiradjuri elder, Dr Matilda House, about her photographic portrait. The talk was broadcast live online via Zoom on Wednesday 24th Jun 2020.

• https://www.artistprofile.com.au/brenda-l-croft/
  

  Brenda L Croft, Artist Profile, hand/made/held/ground, Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, 19 November - 14 December 2019

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP3lSB_vOWg&feature=emb_title
  

  CIAF 2020 - Climate Change Panel: Speakers - Phillemon Mosby, Gavin Singleton, Alexis Wright, Murrandoo Yanner. Facilitator – Brenda L Croft

• https://artcollector.net.au/gallery-event/brenda-l-croft-hand-made-held-ground/
  

  Brenda L Croft: hand/made/held/ground

  Artist Profile, Art Collector

   

• https://player.vimeo.com/video/480584706
  

  Know My Name: Australian Women Artists 1900 to Now 

  Part 1: 14 November 2020 - 4 July 2021

  National Gallery of Australia

  Know My Name Conference

  Session 2 – Alternate Histories
  1pm – 3.30pm Wed 11 Nov 2020

  Facilitated by Dr Catriona Moore with Associate Professor Brenda L. Croft, Dr Anne Marsh, Dr Alex Martinis Roe, Elspeth Pitt and Salote Tawale. Feminist and queer histories, decolonising projects and alternate voices continue to reframe the canon of art history to present new and diversified perspectives on the past, present and future.