Michelle Culpitt
Historical and Contemporary Photography Narratives
Michelle Culpitt (she / her / hers)
Based – Wurundjeri Country of the Kulin Nation, Naarm (Melbourne) Australia.
Born – 1974, Naarm (Melbourne) Australia
Michelle Culpitt’s art practice is based on historical photographic techniques and contemporary digital processes. She makes photos with a variety of camera formats and also camera-less works. Her images, rich in texture and depth, are narratives woven from the threads of history, science, and art. The work parallels movements in photography – often class based due to the material wealth, leisure time and access required – with the concurrent conditions of women and children. Carceral and institutional settings feature as social landscapes for exploration and discovery as they are the places of normative regimes and exclusion that continues today.
Michelle’s use of historical photographic methods guides her process. By delving into the intricacies of processes like daguerreotype, cyanotype, gum bichromate and anthotype she re-enacts historical processes with the period of their invention in mind. Locating stories, language, plants and found objects enable her to trace through experiences to today by looking for people akin to herself.
Michelle received a Bachelor of Arts (Media Arts), Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Honours (fine art) from Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney University. She has received grants and awards including a Creative Australia literary residency, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Ireland, a Copyright Agency Ltd development grant, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada, and a Northern Territory Government Creative Fellowship. Michelle has been resident and created work at sites including George Washington House and Museum and the National Library Service of Barbados, Bridgetown, Barbados, SIM – the Icelandic Artists Association, Reykjavík, Iceland and Tactile Arts, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
Michelle is a non-Aboriginal Australian with Irish, Scottish and English settler and transported ancestry.
Her Australian arts sector roles include senior positions at peak bodies; the Association of Northern Kimberley and Arnhem Aboriginal Artists, Desart Inc and the Aboriginal Artists Association of Western Australia and over a decade at Maningrida Arts & Culture, the Babbarra Women’s Centre / Babbarra Designs, The Djomi Museum and The Cultural Research Office based in Arnhem Land on Njebbana speaking Kunibidji country at Manayingkarrira and surrounding clan estates.
As an arts manager Michelle has worked on projects including:
- “I am the Old and the New,” Supported John Mawurndjul AM and project managed on behalf of his art centre Maningrida Arts & Culture, the expansive retrospective shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney and the Art Gallery of South Australia.
- “We are in Wonder LAND: New Experimental Art from Central Australia” a residency program, conference and exhibition at Sydney University.
- The Gattjirrk Festival – project managed for Artistic Director Keith Lapulung Dhamarrandji OAM, Djambarrpuyngu clan, Dhuwal Djambarrpuyngu language speaker Millingimbi, Arnhem Land.
Michelle has produced work for Regional Arts Australia, and contributed as a peer assessor at Arts NT and Creative Australia. She has written for catalogue publications and art journals including Art Link, Imprint, Art Monthly, Art Collector and Imprint.