Associate Professor Pedram Khosronejad

Academic Level C

College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

Profile
Professional engagement

pedram.khosronejad@flinders.edu.au

Humanities

My curatorial, teaching and research activities to date have been multidisciplinary in scope, cutting across Curatorial and Museum Studies, Visual Studies, Material Culture Studies, and Visual Anthropology.

My interests include questions of contemporary visual art, multidisciplinary curatorial approaches, museum migration collections, and the history of photography in relation to gender, sexuality, and race. In particular, I explore the manners by which art, memory, and material culture are bound up in, as well as influenced and altered by wider political, social, and cultural trends.

My ongoing interdisciplinary museum and curatorial research explores “How can contemporary museums, shape the experience of cultural memory and national identity of a nation in Diaspora?” And how adopting an interpretive and reciprocal approach would thereby help to establish what a museum should be in the 21st century: “a place of debate, engagement, and recognition with both timeless and contemporary themes.”

I have twenty years of intellectual and leadership experience around the world (France, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Japan, United States, and Australia)—spanning program development and small team management; strategic fundraising and public engagement initiatives; museum and regional gallery cultural programming and community engagement; and curatorial practice and collection research across diverse public institutions and cultural agencies.

Qualifications

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociale (EHESS), Paris, France (07/02/2007)

Ph.D., Social Anthropology-Ethnography (Très honorable avec félicitations, awarded with the highest distinction). Dissertation title: ‘Les Lions en Pierre Sculptés chez les Bakhtiâri : Description et Significations de Sculptures Zoomorphes dans une Société Tribale du Sud-ouest de l'Iran’ (Stone Lion Sculptures among the Bakhtiari: Descriptions and Meanings of Zoomorphoric Sculptures in a Tribal Society of South-western Iran). Supervisor: T. Zarcone.

Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), Sorbonne, France (2000)

D.E.A. (Diplôme d’Etudes Approfondies), Material Culture, Visual Art and Arabic Epigraphy. Supervisor: L. Kalus.

University of Art, Tehran, Iran, M.A. (1997)

History of Islamic Art & Persian Painting.

University of Art, Tehran, Iran (1994)

B.A. in Painting.

Honours, awards and grants

Visiting Full Professor, Chair of the University of Nantes in the Institute of Advanced Study, Institute of Advanced Studies, Nantes, France (2014-2015)

Visiting Full Professor, National Museum of Ethnology (MINPAKU), Osaka, Japan (2013-2014)

Key responsibilities

Editor in Chief

Journal Visual Anthropology, Taylor & Francis

https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/gvan20

Peer Assessor (visual art)

Creative Australia (2025 – 2029)

Professional engagement

Curatorial Experience

Guan Wei: Journey from the East: a retrospective exhibition, Grafton Regional Art Gallery, Winter 2027.

HIV IN THE GALLERY, co-curating with Ivan Crozier, a group exhibition regarding public health, biomedical knowledge, and stigma through visual art including Eric Avery, Malcom Angus, Tony Carden, David McDiarmid, Michael Rogowski, Luke Close, Antony Perring, Emil Canita, Aaron McGarry, Tallulah Brown, Chris Lego, Blake Lawrence, Bronwyn Bancroft, Luke Bell, Bulgarr Ngaru, and Agustin Elaskar, Grafton Regional Art Gallery, Spring 2026.

LIGHTKEEPERS, a group exhibition regarding the nature, environment, and the light including Rai Saheli, Anna May Kirk, Shireen Taweel, Chunxiao Qu, James Tylor, Tom Blake, Ross Manning, Nancy Qin, Rive Roshan, Yhonnie Scarce, Sandra Selig, Ali Tahayori, and Judi Watson, Grafton Regional Art Gallery, Automn 2026.

Avital Sheffer in Conversation with Alan Peascod, the first retrospective exhibition of Alan Peascod and Avital Sheffer, Grafton Regional Art Gallery, Winter 2025.

Clarence River, co-curating with Frances Belle Parker, First Nation curator – artist, Grafton Regional Art Gallery, Spring 2025.

Printer’s Proof: Fred Genis Collection, Grafton Regional Art Gallery, May - July 2024.

“Rereading Hans E. Wulff’s Archive of the Traditional Crafts, Technology, Science, Material Culture, and Art of Iran as a Source for Iranian Studies, Tenth European Conference of Iranian Studies, Leiden University, Netherland, August 2023.

German WWII Internees from Persia and their Fate in Australia, Barmera Soldier’s Memorial Hall, Barmera, South Australia, March 2023.

Weavers, Merchants & Kings: Cadrys 70^th Anniversary, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Ultimo, Sydney, Australia, September 2022-January 2023.

Charkha and Kargha: Textiles from Powerhouse Collection, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Ultimo, Sydney, Australia, August 2022-January 2023.

Iranzamin: The Land of Persians, Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Ultimo, Sydney, Australia, March-July 2021.

Aroosi: 150 Years of Iranian Wedding Traditions, University of Southern California, The Farhang Foundation and University of Southern California, California, February-May 2020.

Photography, Race and Slavery: African Sitters of Qajar Era Iran, In association with the Photographs in Motion: Explorations Across Space, Time, and Media workshop, REID Library, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia, October 2019.

Photography, Race and Slavery: African Sitters of Qajar Era Iran, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, September-October 2019.

Unveiling the Veiled: Royal Consorts, Slaves and Prostitutes in Qajar Photographs, Alumni Center, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, U.S.A., October 2018.