Rate My Professor Sean Lowry

Associate Professor Sean Lowry serves as Head of Critical and Theoretical Studies in the School of Art, Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne, a position he has held since 2017. He is also a Senior Lecturer in Art (Critical and Theoretical Studies). Lowry earned his PhD in Visual Arts from the University of Sydney in 2003, with a thesis titled 'The After-Party: The Retreat and Concealment of Strategic Appropriation in Contemporary Art,' and a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours First Class) from the same university in 1999. Prior to his current role, he was Convener of Creative and Performing Arts in the School of Creative Arts at the University of Newcastle from 2007 to 2017. Earlier appointments include Sessional Lecturer in Painting and Studio Theory at Sydney College of the Arts from 2004 to 2006, and Visiting Scholar positions at Parsons The New School for Design in New York (2014) and the Departments of Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego and Irvine (2010). Additionally, he served on the Board of Directors of Artspace Visual Arts Centre in Sydney from 2004 to 2007. Lowry maintains an extensive practice as an artist, writer, musician, curator, performer, and producer spanning from 1987 to the present, including founding concept and principal songwriter for the band Def FX from 1990 to 1997.

Lowry's academic interests and research specializations encompass visual art, experimental music, artistic research, performance art, and curatorial practice, often exploring dissemination strategies outside traditional exhibition circuits. He founded and served as Executive Director of Project Anywhere from 2012 to 2023, a global program supported by the University of Melbourne's Centre of Visual Arts and Parsons School of Art, Media and Technology. Key ongoing collaborations include The Ghosts of Nothing with Ilmar Taimre (2014–present), featuring exhibitions and performances such as Sounds of Clouds (2025) and Sounds of Unridden Waves (2022); Cūrā8 with Kim Donaldson (2022–2025), with group shows including Ritual Eternal (2025), Chronomingle (2024), and Oscilloforms (2024); and Empty Gods with Damien Melchiori (2025–present). Other projects feature Ochromosonico with Mark Titmarsh and Gary Warner (2025, 2024). Lowry's creative outputs include artist books like Sounds of Clouds and scholarly works such as 'The Ghosts of Nothing: The World of a Work of Performance Framed as Art' and 'Empty Gods: GRACE.' He has secured external funding, including for Cūrā8 via a Collaborative Research Agreement, and received awards such as the Foreign Photographer Award at the Pingyao International Photography Festival (2019) and 'Best Keyboards' in the Rolling Stone Music Awards Readers Poll (1994). From 2022 to 2024, he held roles as Associate Director (Research) and Impact Lead (Research) at the Victorian College of the Arts and Faculty of Fine Arts and Music.