Dr. Rea Saunders

r e a’s (they/them) is an Indigenous, experimental interdisciplinary artist / curator / activist / cultural educator and creative thinker from the Gamilaraay / Wailwan / Biripi Nations of NSW. r e a is currently a post-doc research fellow at the University of Queensland. 

Their practise-led research extends across a thirty-year career and takes its development from critical & contemporary discourses, which investigate intersectionality and positionality through the cultural convergence of Aboriginality: in the visual arts, digital technologies, history, colonialism, identity, the ‘blak’ body, gender and queer politics. (https://rea-noir.com/)

r e a’s art knowingly draws on a legacy of lived experience and the impact of intergenerational trauma, grief and loss, which is demonstrated in the body of work that r e a created for their doctoral research titled ‘Vaguely Familiar’: haunted identities, contested histories, Indigenous futures’, r e a produced a significant body of visual work, which explored how they learnt to ‘deep-listen’ (dadirri), to country. r e a’s artistic practice is the life-force that keeps them connected to country, culture, and community – ALWAYS!!!