Bio of project team members

Dr Chiaki Ajioka was formerly the Curator of Japanese Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW). Prior to that, she worked as the principal Japanese subtitler at SBS Television. She also served as a Board member of the Australia-Japan Foundation (DFAT) 2012-15. Chiaki has published, given lectures and curated exhibitions on modern Japanese prints and crafts, and now works as Japanese art consultant and translator for public institutions and private collectors.

In this project, Chiaki contributed an essay and subtitled two videos.

Grace Cochrane AM, is an independent curator, historian and writer who has worked with craftspeople and their organisations for nearly 50 years. A former senior curator at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, she wrote The Crafts Movement in Australia: a history (1992) and has contributed to many other publications. She has been a member of many boards and education programs. For 40 years, she has opened exhibitions, spoken at conferences in Australia and overseas, written for a range of catalogues, journals and publications, and examined many PhD and Master’s submissions.

In this project, Grace contributed an essay.

Meredith Hinchliffe AM is an arts advocate, writer, critic and donor to national and local cultural organisations. Meredith was the first full-time employee of Craft ACT in the mid-1970s. She later joined the Canberra National Sculpture Forum committee and chaired Ausdance ACT for many years. Meredith has written and published numerous articles on Hiroe’s ceramics over the decades.

In this project, Meredith contributed an essay and an artist bio.

Alan Watt was the Head of the Ceramics Workshop at the ANU School of Art from 1979 to 1998. Alan and Hiroe taught there together for nearly two decades. Watt is an important figure in Australian and international ceramics. His work is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, most state galleries, regional, institutional, corporate and private collections in Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.

In this project, Alan contributed an essay.

Michiyo Miyake is a Japanese translator and writer based in Sydney. As a translator, she has worked on various contemporary art projects and literary translations.

Nicholas Marshall is an editor and translator based in Sydney. He holds a doctorate in linguistics and worked as a professor of English for Academic Purposes at Meiji University in Tokyo.

Michiyo and Nicholas work together as the translation duo UGUISU.

In this project, Michiyo and Nicholas proofread, translated and edited the written texts on the website, including the essays.

 

 

 

 

Yumiko Starke is a photographer based in Canberra. She photographed Hiroe’s artworks and portraits of the artist on commission for exhibitions and art magazines from 2019 to 2021.

In this project, Yumiko filmed the demonstration video. It took three months to complete the filming. A small team of three worked on the filming process: Hiroe Swen, the artist; Yumiko Starke, the videographer; and Mayumi Shinozaki, the project manager.

Michael Lawrence-Taylor is an award-winning documentary film writer, director and editor. His most recent documentary, Unseen, was screened at international film festivals and available on ABC iView. Michael lives and works on the South Coast of NSW, working as a freelance director, shooter producer, and editor.

In this project, Michael edited the demonstration video. The original footage was over 3 ½ hours, and he edited it into a short and crisp 36 clips. It was quite a challenging process, and we owe a lot to Michael.

Michael also filmed Hiroe’s interview video.

Edie Young is a qualified freelance editor and proofreader. Edie has a Graduate Diploma in Asian Art, University of London 2005, and Masters in Art History and Curatorship, ANU 2011. Edie wrote an article on Hiroe Swen, titled, ‘Artist profile: an interview with ceramic artist Hiroe Swen’, published in the quarterly magazine, The Asian Arts Society of Australia Review in 2018.

In this project, Edie proofread the video subtitles.

Brenton McGeachie is an established art photographer based in Canberra. He has decades of experience documenting art across different mediums for the National Gallery of Australia, National Portrait Gallery, National Library of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Canberra Museum and Gallery, and privately for individual artists.

In this project, Brenton photographed artworks, digitised historical photographs and slides, and edited interview video footage.

Chie Muraoka is an award-winning designer and web developer. Chie’s work for the last decade has focused on not-for-profit projects that promote deepening friendships between Australia and Japan and assisted Japanese-Australian artists, identities and communities in telling their stories.

In this project, Chie designed and created the digital archive website.

Mayumi Shinozaki was a senior librarian at the National Library of Australia, curating the Japanese language collection and supporting the Japanese studies research community in Australia.

In this project, Mayumi oversaw and managed the project.