Rate My Professor Amy Carkeek

Dr Amy Carkeek is a Lecturer in Photographic Practices at the Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University, located on the South Bank Campus. She earned her PhD (2014-2019), Master of Visual Art with upgrade (2011-2014), and Bachelor of Photography (2000-2003), all from the Queensland College of Art at Griffith University. In her role, she also heads the Photography Major in the Bachelor of Visual Art program and serves as First Year/Commencing Student Coordinator. As an artist and researcher, Carkeek investigates photography's mediation through technologies and commonplace environments, focusing on its cultural and social implications.

Her practice-led research centers on commodified images and objects in popular culture, exploring their role in constructing neoliberal narratives and values that enable control. Utilizing readymade and found objects, particularly outdated domestic commodities, she disrupts their surfaces or functions to probe their past lives through lenses of suburban gothic, nostalgia, and kitsch, thereby critiquing the inconsistencies of the neoliberal dream and suburban rituals. A notable publication is her article 'Even Our Dreams Are Fake: Suburban Illusions and Their Gothic Interventions' in Social Alternatives (Vol. 41, No. 2, pp. 6-19, 2022). Carkeek's artistic impact is evident in numerous exhibitions, including solo shows such as 'Welcome to the Dreamhouse' at Onespace, Brisbane (2018), 'God Told Me So' at Gaffa Gallery, Sydney (2017), 'Australian Dream' at Perth Centre for Photography (2015-2016), 'Even Our Dreams Are Fake' at Gympie Regional Art Gallery (2015), 'The End of Aesthetic Illusion' at Redland Art Gallery (2014), and earlier works like 'All You Can Eat' at Brisbane Powerhouse (2008). Group exhibitions feature 'The Hutchins Australian Contemporary Art Prize', Hobart (2018), 'Twelve Artists, Ten Cities' and 'Satirical Pop' at M. Contemporary, Sydney (2018), 'Parallels of Latitude' at University of South Australia Art Gallery (2017), and 'Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award' at Gold Coast Art Gallery (2013). Awards include winner of the Brisbane Lord Mayor’s Photographic Award (2011), and finalist positions in The Hutchins Australian Contemporary Art Award (2018), Wyndham Art Prize (2017), Moreton Bay Region Art Award (2016), Clayton and Utz Art Award (2014), and Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Photography Award (2013). Represented by M. Contemporary in Sydney, her work advances discourse on consumer imagery, cultural illusions, and contemporary visual arts.