Associate ProfessorCameron Bishop

Scope of Work

Cameron Bishop (PhD) is an artist, writer and curator, and Associate Professor in Art and Performance at Deakin University. As a curator he has initiated and devised a number of large scale public art projects including Front Beach Back Beach, Six Moments in Kingston (2019) & Treatment (2015/17/23) at the Western Treatment Plant and surrounding communities in collaboration with David Cross; Sounding Histories at the Mission to Seafarers Melbourne with Annie Wilson (2017); and the ongoing VACANTGeelong project with architectural and creative arts researchers, and leading Australian artists, a project that explores and activates spaces left behind by de-industrialisation. As the recipient of numerous grants, awards and commissions he has been acknowledged for his community-focussed and collaborative approach to making public art with diverse groups in unique locations. The most recent example of this was in 2024 when Bishop and Cross were invited to curate a project, Venetian Bind, in Venice by the European Cultural Centre, where like the 2019, Venetian Blind, event, they devised a program that allowed 24 artists, researchers and higher degree candidates from the School of Communication and Creative Arts to make work in time-sensitive, collaborative and site-responsive ways. 

All of his work explores the shifting nature of the term public, ideas around place-making, and the body's appearance and experience as a political, private, and social entity. To this end he has published writing in book chapters, journals and exhibition catalogues while addressing these issues in the artwork he makes, often in collaboration with the artist and engineer, Simon Reis. With David Cross, he has also worked on consultancy projects for councils and major infrastructure projects including the Metro Tunnel Creative Strategy, which saw them team with Claire Doherty from the UK-based Public Art Commissioning agency, Situations. This saw them establish the successful Strategic Research Initiative, The Public Art Commission (2018-23), which has grown into the Public Art Exchange (PEB), which he currently leads - https://www.deakin.edu.au/faculty-of-arts-and-education/research/public-exchange-bureau . The Public Exchange Bureau is made up of researchers from across the School of Communication and Creative Arts; it is a cross-disciplinary group that uses diverse creative research methodologies to address social, environmental and cultural concerns occurring in the public sphere. Their projects have a special focus on resilience, wellbeing, aesthetic innovation and diversity in south-east Melbourne and the western regions of Victoria.