Catherine Ryan
Eugene Hyland
About
Catherine Ryan is an artist, writer and performer who works in media including performance, sound, text, video and installation. Her recent works examine how the imperative to be productive structures the experience of time under neoliberalism, as well as ways that concepts from musicology can provide fresh insights into the ecological crisis. Her performance lectures blur the boundaries between traditional lectures and live performance, combining the informative and educational aspects of a lecture with the creative and expressive elements of a performance.
She has presented work at galleries and festivals in Australia and Europe, including Gertrude Contemporary, MUMA (Melbourne), the Royal College of Art (London), the Vienna Biennale, the Melbourne Art Fair and Vitalstatistix (Port Adelaide). She has written accompanying creative and philosophical texts for a number of art projects, as well as miscellaneous pieces in academic and not-so-academic publications. Her work uses humour to prompt questions and debate about the present social order - particularly about gaps and silences in public discourse where urgent social issues are not confronted, or where the collective political imaginary has proven inadequate to the challenges of the present.
Catherine is also a multi-instrumentalist who composes electronic music. She holds a Masters of Contemporary Art from the Victorian College of the Arts and a Master of Arts in philosophy and critical theory from Monash University. She is currently undertaking a PhD in the School of Art at RMIT University.
Queer Development Program, 2024
Past Programs