Kristen Sharp

Associate Professor Kristen Sharp is the Associate Dean, Art in the School of Art at RMIT University.

Kristen is a researcher, writer and curator of contemporary art. Her research interests include contemporary art and urban space, contemporary Asian art, and collaborative art practices in transnational projects. Kristen's publications include Screen Ecologies: Art, Media and the Environment in the Asia-Pacific Region (with Hjorth, Pink and Williams, MIT Press, 2016), Re-imagining the City (co-edited with Grierson, Intellect, 2013) and Sounds of Weather (with Musashino Art University, Tokyo 2013).

Kristen is currently working on a Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and trade (DFAT) Cultural Diplomacy Grant Program research project in Hong Kong with co-invesigtators Professor Mikala Dwyer (RMIT) and Dr Tammy Wong Hullbert (RMIT) in partnership with the Hong Kong Arts Centre Public Art Team. Phantasms for Future Ecologies presenting digital projection artworks by leading Australian artist Mikala Dwyer in the neighbourhood of Tai Kok Tsui in Hong Kong alongside community workshops. It is part of a broader urban renewal project Re: Tai Kok Tsui.

In 2021 Kristen co-curated Mutable Ecologies: Art and Design Interfaces for environment futures with P. Samartzis and A. Teztlaff involving leading artists from Australia and Japan and in partneship with Asialink Arts at The University of Melbourne, Musahino Art Univeristy, Japan and the NTT Intercommunication Center, Tokyo. The project was funded by DFAT Australia-Japan Foundation and Asialink Arts.

Kristen was a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Linkage grant, Spatial Dialogues: public art and climate change, researching public art and social media collaborations responding to climate change. The project was located across Melbourne Shanghai and Tokyo (with Williams, Hjorth, Samartzis, Perry and Redfern) 2010-2013. She co-curated (with Samartzis) The Sonic City for the 14th Liquid Architecture National Sound Art Festival 2013, involving established and emerging sound artists from Australia, Spain and Japan.

In addition to publications and collaborative research projects, Kristen is an invited speaker, writer and peer-reviewer on contemporary Asian art, transcultural art practices and art in urban environments. She has also co-convened a number of innovative and inter-disciplinary research symposiums reframing the relationship between contemporary arts practice and global urban space, drawing together Australian and international researchers. She continues to develop art projects in the Asia-Pacific region with artists responding to the material, social and symbolic spaces of the city.

Research member
- CAST (Contemporary Art and Social Transformation) Research Group: Migration + Mobilities group
- Digital Ethnography Research Centre, RMIT University
- Urban Futures EIP
- Design & Creative Practice EIP