Dr Kyla McFarlane is Academic Engagement Fellow in the Museums and Collections Department at the University of Melbourne, and a curator and writer. In her Universoty of Melbourne role she leads a broad, collaborative program of curricular and co-curricular engagements connecting academics, researchers and tertiary students with experts, exhibitions, art collections and programs in the University's Art Museums - Buxton Contemporary (Southbank), Treasury at Old Quad and Potter Museum of Art (Parkville). Kyla has a particular interest in fostering interdisciplinary and practice-based teaching and research in the museum context. Annually, under the auspices of The Potter, she convenes an interdisciplinary public forum bringing University of Melbourne researchers alongside creative practitioners, highlighting art making in all forms as knowledge production.

As a curator, Kyla has held key curatorial positions at the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Meanjin/Brisbane; the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Naarm/Melbourne; and Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA, Naarm/Melbourne and worked independently. Kyla's extensive curatorial and art writing practice has focussed primarily on lens-based, feminist, performative and emerging art practices in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. Since 1996 she has published regularly on contemporary visual art, working closely with artists and commissioning editors on numerous catalogue essays and critical texts for anthologies and artist monographs. Her reviews and essays in a range of journals and periodicals including Art New Zealand, Art Monthly Australia, Australian Art Collector, Eyeline, Photofile and un Magazine. She was guest editor of un Magazine Volume 4 and edits a publication series related to the Potter Museum's annual Interdisciplinary forums.

Kyla identifies as Pakeha, and is originally from Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, in Aotearoa/New Zealand. She moved to Naarm/Melbourne in 1998. She holds a PhD in visual culture from Monash University and a Master of Arts in art history (First Class Hons) from the University of Auckland. Her 2004 Phd thesis, 'Hysterical Scenes: Case Studies in Contemporary Photography' examined the relationship between feminism, psychoanalytic theory and contemporary photographic practice.

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Kyla McFarlane

Academic Engagement Research Fellow

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Dr

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