Alana Jelinek

I am a practicing artist who writes theory of art, focusing on the definition, role and value of art within society. Having spent 8 years working with anthropologists, and a few archaeologists at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge (2009-2017) and also at the Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden Netherlands), one of my areas of research interest is the benefits and pitfalls of inter-disciplinary practice, and specifically the misunderstandings that arise between anthropologists and artists when common vocabularies, methods and knowledge sets are assumed. My scholarly (meaning written academic) work describe the discipline of art, the type of knowledge that art produces, the role of art in democracy, and also the ethics of inter- and multi-disciplinary work with artists.

In addition to writing scholarly books and articles, I write fiction. Both my scholarly work, and my fiction have investigated art under neoliberalism, and the internalisation of neoliberal values. I have also written on how taxonomies effect knowledge-forming and understanding through the device of writing from the point of view a nineteenth century Fijian cannibal fork trying to understand the world of colonial encounters. Colonialism and the legacy of that period has been an area of interest for my art, curating and writing over a number of decades. That said, I am probably best known for writing on, and creating, socially-engaged participatory art.

Colonialism | Contemporary Art | Philosophy | Museums | Ethnography | Anthropology | Neoliberalism | Australia | Indigenous Cultures of Oceania | Ecology: the science and the politics