Barbara Campbell (born 1961) is an Australian performance and installation artist.

Early life and education

Campbell was born in

Beaudesert, Queensland Beaudesert ( Yugambeh: ''Yilbagan'') is a rural town and locality in the Scenic Rim Region of Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Beaudesert had a population of 6,752 people. Beaudesert is the administrative centre for the Scenic R ...

in 1961. She studied film under Alan Cholodenko, Rex Butler and Keith Broadfoot at Power Department of Art History at

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

in 1987. She completed a Master of Visual Arts at

Sydney College of the Arts The Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) is a contemporary art school that was a faculty of the University of Sydney from 1990 until 2017, when it became a school of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Until the end of 2019, the campus was locat ...

, University of Sydney in 1998. In 2015, she completed a PhD at Sydney College of the Arts, researching how migratory

shorebird 245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...

s direct human performance.

Influences and art practice

Campbell's influences come from peers working in the Sydney Super 8 Film Group, 60s minimalist

filmmaker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a Film, motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screen ...

s such as

Stan Brakhage James Stanley Brakhage ( ; January 14, 1933 – March 9, 2003) was an American experimental filmmaker. He is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th-century experimental film. Over the course of five decades, Brakhage cr ...

. Campbell also recognises the influence of French

semioticians Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is an ...

such as Christian Metz,

Jean-Louis Baudry Jean-Louis Baudry (March 2, 1930 – October 3, 2015) was a French novelist, '' Tel Quel'' literary editor, and psychoanalytic film theorist. He is best known for "Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus" (1970) and "The Appara ...

André Bazin André Bazin (; 18 April 1918 – 11 November 1958) was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist. He started to write about movies in 1943 and was a co-founder of the renowned film magazine '' Cahiers du cinéma'' in 1951 ...

Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard (, ; ; – 6 March 2007) was a French sociology, sociologist and philosopher with an interest in cultural studies. He is best known for his analyses of media, contemporary culture, and technological communication, as well as hi ...

and

Raymond Bellour Raymond Bellour (born 1939 in Lyon) is a French scholar, and writer. Best known to Anglophone readers for his publications on film analysis, his work is dispersed across a wide range of articles and books, few of which are available in English, i ...

. In 1987 Campbell took a course in

Super 8 Super 8 or Super Eight may refer to: Film * Super 8 film, a motion picture film format released in 1965 * Super 8 film camera, a motion picture camera used to film Super 8mm motion picture format * ''Super 8'' (2011 film), a science-fiction f ...

at the

Tin Sheds The Tin Sheds was the common name of the Sydney University Art Workshop, an Australian art workshop in Sydney, New South Wales, founded in 1969. Its name lives on in the Tin Sheds Gallery at the University of Sydney School of Architecture, De ...

art workshop at the

, and conducted numerous workshops organised by Sydney Intermedia Network with artists and peers such as Andrew Frost. Campbell later started using video, setting up live video feedback so that the camera and the monitor could be used to create a dialogue between performer and audience.

Career

Campbell used text as the starting point for her large-scale installation ''Conradania'', based on

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the Eng ...

’s acclaimed 1899 novel '' The Heart of Darkness'' set on the Congo River in Africa.

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola ( ; born April 7, 1939) is an American filmmaker. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood and one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. List of awards and nominations received by Francis Ford Coppo ...

based the film ''

Apocalypse Now ''Apocalypse Now'' is a 1979 American psychological epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola, John Milius, and Michael Herr, is loosely inspired by the 1899 novella '' Heart of Darkn ...

'' on Conrad's novel. Campbell spent eight weeks typing out ''The Heart of Darkness'' word for word on twenty lengths of Chinese

rice paper Rice paper is a product constructed of paper-like materials made from different plants. These include: *''Thin peeled dried pith of Tetrapanax papyrifer'': A sheet-like "paper" material was used extensively in late 19th century Guangdong, China ...

. She then filmed the Jungle Cruise ride at

Disneyland Disneyland is a amusement park, theme park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. It was the first theme park opened by the Walt Disney Company and the only one designed and constructed under the direct supervision of Walt Disney, ...

, which is played on a small screen in front of the hanging rice paper. ''1001 nights cast'' (2005-2008) is written by hundreds of collaborators, using video to live web-stream performances through the project's dedicated website. The work was inspired by

The Arabian Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition () ...

, the famous anthology of stories and how storytelling was a means of survival; the young woman

Scheherazade Scheherazade () is a major character and the storyteller in the frame story, frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the ''One Thousand and One Nights''. Name According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade ...

stalls her execution by weaving an endless story of such intrigue that the King Shahriyar eventually grants her a reprieve. From 1982 to 1983, Campbell was Gallery Co-ordinator at the

Institute of Modern Art The Institute of Modern Art (IMA) is a public art gallery located in the Judith Wright Arts Centre in the Brisbane inner-city suburb of Fortitude Valley, which features contemporary artworks and showcases emerging artists in a series of group and ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

. She has also done research into the arts and culture sectors, and was an office bearer of the Queensland Artworkers Union (later Artworkers Alliance). In 1984, she ran the influential A Room

art collective An artist collective or art group or artist group is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything t ...

George Street, Brisbane George Street is a major street located in the Brisbane central business district, Brisbane CBD in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Geography George Street extends from the Queensland University of Technology, Queensland University of Technol ...

Collections

, four of her works are held in the

National Gallery of Australia The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in th ...

Canberra Canberra ( ; ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the Federation of Australia, federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's list of cities in Australia, largest in ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Campbell, Barbara 1961 births Living people 21st-century Australian women artists 21st-century Australian artists People from Beaudesert, Queensland