Kim Machan

Dr Kim Machan is a video and media arts specialist, curator, writer and founding director of the not-for-profit arts organisation MAAP-Media Art Asia Pacific. She has researched, curated, developed, produced, and commissioned media arts projects in Australia and the Asia regions through this organisation since 1998. Machan has pioneered collaborative cultural partnerships with arts organizations and governments throughout the Asia regions to produce and curate major exhibitions, festivals, public art programs and innovative art projects. She has negotiated complex projects working with museums, galleries, contemporary art spaces, universities and non-traditional art settings in Australia and the Asia Pacific regions working with institutions such as the China Millennium Monument Art Museum, the National Art Museum of China, and the National Library of China in Beijing; the Shanghai Library; Queensland Art Gallery; National Art School Gallery, Sydney; Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane; OCAT Shanghai; the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou; the Singapore Art Museum; Nam June Paik Art Centre, and Art Sonje Art Center, Seoul amongst others. In 2002, she curated (with Fan Di'an) 'MAAP in Beijing: MOIST’, the first museum new media art exhibition presented in China. In 2008, she was curatorial advisor to ‘Synthetic Times: Media Art China 2008’ at the National Art Museum of China, which was a Beijing Olympics Cultural Project and 'Thingworld' 2014 also at the National Art Museum of China both led by artistic director Zhang Ga. Other projects include ‘Light from Light’ that won the highly distinguished Australian Arts in Asia Award for Visual Arts in 2013 and ‘LANDSEASKY: Revisiting Spatiality in Video Art’ that toured major museums and galleries in Seoul, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Sydney and Brisbane through 2014-2015. In 2016-2017, curator of ‘Zhang Peili: from painting to video’ with Olivier Krischer at the Australian Centre for China in the World, Canberra. Her PhD research concerning the rise of video art in East Asia titled 'Refocusing on the Medium: the Rise of East Asia Video Art' was also an exhibition presented in China at OCAT Shanghai contemporary art museum from 27 December 2020 to 21 March 2021 and at the Beijing Minsheng Art Museum from 5 March to 8 May 2022. Machan has lectured in curatorial masterclasses, contemporary Asian art, in universities and art schools in Australia, China and Singapore. Details of these and other projects can be found along with edited publications at www.maap.org.au