Rate My Professor Michelle Antoinette

Michelle Antoinette is Associate Professor of Art History and Theory in the Department of Fine Art at Monash University’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Naarm/Melbourne. She earned her PhD in Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Research from the Australian National University in 2006, with a focus on contemporary Southeast Asian art, and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Visual Arts from Monash University in 1999, concentrating on Indonesian contemporary art. Prior to joining Monash, she held research and teaching positions at the Australian National University in Canberra for over fifteen years, serving as Convenor and Lecturer for courses on Asian and Pacific art and museums. Her teaching emphasizes decolonising art histories, and she supervises graduate projects across Art History & Theory, Curatorial Practice, and Fine Art Practice. As Course Director for the Bachelor of Art History and Curating, she fosters innovative approaches to art studies.

Antoinette’s research centers on modern and contemporary Asian art histories, particularly Southeast Asian contemporary art and its intersections with globalisation, alongside the art of Asian diasporas including Asian-Australian artists. She has secured major Australian Research Council fellowships: ‘The Rise of New Cultural Networks in Asia in the Twenty-First Century’ (DP1096041), the DECRA project ‘Asian Art Publics’ (DE170100455, 2017–2020), and the international team project ‘Care and Repair: Rethinking Contemporary Curation for Conditions of Crisis’ (DP240102206, commencing 2024). Key publications include her monograph Reworlding Art History: Encounters with Contemporary Southeast Asian Art after 1990 (Brill | Rodopi, 2015), co-edited Contemporary Asian Art and Exhibitions: Connectivities and World-making (ANU Press, 2014, with Caroline Turner), and co-editor of the 2020 special issue of World Art on ‘Contemporary art worlds and art publics in Southeast Asia’. She co-curated Shaping Geographies: Art, Woman, Southeast Asia in Singapore (2019–2020) and organized symposia such as Shifting Grounds, New Horizons: Thinking and doing contemporary Southeast Asian art now (2022). Her work contributes to global art discourses through public lectures, exhibitions, and media engagements.