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Curator, writer and researcher Dr Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris works within ADA’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S). Prior to that she was a Research Fellow at the School of Art & Design. Her interdisciplinary research into water, climate and art continues to expand and evolve.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

My expertise is on the poetics and politics of eco-aesthetics, and I write curatorial theory with a special focus on water, environmental art and hydrofeminism. My most recent research proposed ‘the Hydrocene’ or Age of Water as a disruptive epoch – this is also the focus of my first monograph .

I currently live on Dharug and Gundungurra Country in the Blue Mountains with my family but was previously based in Sweden for 10 years. Those years in the Nordic context have been highly formative to my work. In Stockholm, I undertook postgraduate research placements at both the major universities and was the curator at Index Foundation for many years. I also had the fascinating job of leading and developing the first ever Art + Research program at Stockholm University’s museum – . This represented a great chance to experiment with interdisciplinarity and the movement of knowledge from art to broader fields. Alongside research and curatorial theory, I still maintain an independent curatorial practice.

Most recently, I curated artist Bianca Hester’s solo exhibition and symposium, , at ºÚÁÏÍø´óÊÂ¼Ç Galleries and Clifton School of Art (2024), and at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne (2025). I'm also a curator for the nation-wide .

What or who sparked your interest in this area of research?

My work with water and climate emerged directly from working in the field. Indeed, I tend to think of water as my curatorial companion – a figure in my research, a way into methodology, poetics and politics. Follow the water. I’ve continuously sought out a way to enact what American philosopher Karen Barad calls ‘theories as “living and breathing reconfigurings of the world"’. Further to this, my development of the curatorial theory of the Hydrocene reflects my training and practice as a curator, a model of testing strategies for elevating and mediating the work of artists, audience and context.

What are you working on right now?

Before joining ADM+S, I was Research Fellow at the School of Art & Design, where I was looking at the potential implications of the Hydrocene toward climate justice and action. It’s an extension of thinking with water and re-understanding human-hydro relations. In my new role as a post-doctoral fellow at ADM+S, I’m hoping to continue some of this watery thinking while embarking on a new research project with Professor Deborah Lupton. The project is titled Digitising and Datafying the Four Elements and contributes to a new signature project at ADM+S on ecosystems and multispecies relations. Our study engages with ecosystems and elementality – think bushfires, soil health, water systems and air pollution – and examines how these ecosystems are digitised and datafied by artists with digital technologies including ADM and AI.

What do you find most rewarding about being a researcher?

I appreciate the ability to consider things deeply, to think poetically and to act critically. As an early career researcher, I’m in a hugely privileged position to be able to develop meaningful research while learning from my colleagues and, more established researchers who have paved this path before me. I love being able to collaborate with incredible folk and to have the time to write about artists and their practices, especially those who are not usually understood well in these contexts.

What piece of advice would you give to someone who is considering or about to transition into academia?

I’m keen on interrogating what interdisciplinarity might mean in my practice – moving between theoretical and practical applications of my work as a curator and theorist. If I were to share advice, I’d say that leaving your homebase or field can be a bit like moving to a new country. It’s a long process and there is a time where you will be out of step with your surroundings, existing as a bit of an outsider. Do not dismiss this. There is a lot of value in being new to something, and I would recommend interrogating meaning and knowledge production from this fresh perspective. Interdisciplinarity is about learning and listening. It's highly collaborative and very rewarding to bring your own fields’ expertise somewhere new. At its best, interdisciplinarity is wayfinding collaboratively. Together, we find modes to elevate and agitate the fresh perspectives which emerge.

To learn more about Dr Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris' research, projects and achievements, visit her Researcher Profile.