Dr Sophie McIntyre

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Creative Practice,
Visual Arts
Biography
Sophie McIntyre is a Senior Lecturer in creative industries and visual arts, and an established art curator. Her research interests include art history and theory, curating, museology, public and socially-engaged art, identity politics, Indigenous representations, cultural diplomacy and soft power, especially in the Asia-Pacific (including Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and New Zealand). She has published nationally and internationally in peer-reviewed journals, books, anthologies and exhibition catalogues, and curated more than 30 exhibitions, several of which have toured nationally and internationally. Sophie has been a visiting scholar, and delivered keynote and guest lectures in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Laos, China, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States. While Sophie has published and curated exhibitions of art from Australia and across the Asia-Pacific, her focus has been on Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong, where she has lived, studied and worked for 25 years. She is the sole author of the book, Imagining Taiwan: the Role of Art in Taiwan's Quest for Identity (Brill, 2018), which was based on her PhD from ANU. The most recent exhibitions she has curated include: Ink Remix: contemporary art from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong (2015-2017) which featured works by 14 leading artists and toured Australia (Canberra Museum and Gallery; Bendigo Art Gallery; UNSW Galleries; and Museum of Brisbane); and she was commissioned to curate Intertextuality - A solo exhibition by Hang Chunhui (2018-2019) (Asia Art Center, Taipei & Beijing). Sophie has received grants, scholarships and fellowships from Australia, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong to conduct academic and curatorial research in this area, and she was invited by the Comité International L’Histoire de L’Art (CIHA) to be an International Chair and Convenor in the 34th World Congress of Art History (Beijing, 2016). Prior to becoming a full time academic, Sophie was a director and curator in public galleries and museums in Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan. She worked predominantly in the university art museum sector, and was the inaugural director of Griffith University's art museum at Southbank; and the second director at Victoria University of Wellington's Adam Art Gallery in New Zealand. Sophie has also worked at national and state museums, including the National Museum of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Since 2007, she has been a freelance curator. In 1991, Sophie co-founded a non-for-profit arts organization, Dihedron, in Brisbane which was one of Australia's first arts organisations supporting and promoting artists and artworkers from a culturally diverse background (especially refugees and recent migrants in Australia) through exhibitions, publications, community and educational programs. Sophie was also co-founder and consultant for University Art Museums Australia (UAMA), and she is an authorised consultant for the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program.Personal details
Positions
- Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Creative Industries, Education & Social Justice,
School of Creative Practice,
Visual Arts
Keywords
visual art and society, Asia-Pacific, museums, curatorship, identity politics, Indigenous art and culture, cultural diplomacy and soft power
Discipline
Visual Arts and Crafts, Curatorial and Related Studies, Art Theory and Criticism
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- PhD (Australian National University)
Professional memberships and associations
Museums Australia International Council of Museums (ICOM) Asian Studies Association of Australia
Teaching
At QUT, Dr Sophie McIntyre teaches into the Bachelor of Creative Industries (Studio Enterprise 2) and Visual Arts (art history/theory). Between 2018-2020 she was also the Course Coordinator for the Bachelor of Creative Industries.
In 2019, she was awarded a New Columbo Mobility Grant by the Federal Government. This three year grant enables QUT students to travel to Taiwan on a study tour. The first tour was taken in 2019, and 14 students from the Faculty of Creative Industries joined the tour. This is an immersive cultural and learning experience in which QUT students collaborate with local university students, and visit galleries, museums, local and Indigenous artist and designer studios, and significant historical and cultural sites across the island, as well as learning the Mandarin language.
Prior to joining QUT in 2018, Sophie taught at the University of Queensland (Masters of Museum Studies). She was also a lecturer and tutor at the Australian National University (2008-2012) and the University of Sydney where she taught and coordinated courses in:
- Modern and Contemporary Asian art;
- Museum Studies & Curatorial Practice;
- Australian Contemporary Art;
- Photography (history & theory);
- Theories of the Image;
- Points of View: Independent Creative Art & Media Practice
Overseas, she has taught short courses in Critical and Curatorial Studies in Contemporary Art (National Taipei University of Education); and delivered a lecture series on Contemporary art from the Australia and the Asia-Pacific (Lingnan University, Hong Kong); and on Taiwan art and Identity in the Taiwan Studies Program (SOAS, University of London & Nottingham University).
Experience
Academic and Community Service
- Reviewer of Q1 and Peer-reviewed Journals: Third Text; International Journal of Taiwan Studies
- Invited Keynote speaker: European Association of Taiwan Studies International Conference (Belgium); University Art Museums Australia
- Invited International Expert Panel Member & Conference Chair: Comité International L’Histoire de L’Art - 34th World Congress of Art History (Beijing, 2016)
- Invited Visiting Scholar: School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London, 2018); National Taipei University of Education (2016-2018); Lingnan University, Hong Kong (2007)
Selected publications
- McIntyre S, (2021) The public rise and exhibition of Taiwan Indigenous art and its role in nation-building and reconciliation. In C Huang, D Davies & D Fell, Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples, Routledge, pp. 105-127.
- McIntyre S, (2019) Soft power and the role of art in the development of Taiwan-mainland China relations. In R Bullen, J Beattie & M Galikowski, China in Australasia: Cultural diplomacy and Chinese arts since the cold war (Routledge Studies in the Modern History of Asia), Routledge, pp. 151-169.
- McIntyre S, (2019) Intertextuality: HANG Chunhui Solo Exhibition, Asia Art Center (Taipei, Beijing) . [Exhibition/Event].
- McIntyre S, (2018) Imagining Taiwan: The Role of Art in Taiwan's Quest for Identity, Brill.
- McIntyre S, (2017) Questions of identity and origins in the museological representation of contemporary Indigenous art in Taiwan, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, 3 (1-2), pp. 110-129.
- McIntyre S, (2015) The art of diplomacy: The role of exhibitions in the development of Taiwan-China relations, Journal of Curatorial Studies, 4 (1), pp. 56-77.
- McIntyre S, Wang E, Pan A, (2015) Ink remix: Contemporary art from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong - Exhibition Catalogue . [Textual].
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Sophie, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Awards
- Type
- Funding Award
- Reference year
- 2021
- Details
- Recipient of an internationally competitive grant awarded by Taiwan's Ministry of Culture to develop and deliver an online symposium entitled, 'Grounded in Place: Dialogues between First Nations Artists from Australia, Taiwan and New Zealand' ($AUD25,000), organised in partnership with the National Prehistory Museum in Taiwan and the Govett-Brewster Gallery in New Zealand. https://research.qut.edu.au/cpfsi/events/grounded-in-place-symposium/The symposium focused on Indigenous art & film and brought together, for the first time, 20 established and emerging First Nations artists, curators and filmmakers with non-Indigenous scholars and museum professionals from Australia, Taiwan, New Zealand and the Philippines. New fields of research and inquiry emerged from this exchange, and a publication is in progress, and an exhibition planned. The symposium was held across two days (8 & 9 October 2021) and attracted more than 375 attendees world-wide.
- Type
- Keynote Speaker/Expert Panel Member/Invited Speaker for a Conference
- Reference year
- 2020
- Details
- Invited Keynote speaker in an international symposium presented by European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) held in Brussels.
- Type
- Advisor/Consultant for Industry
- Reference year
- 2019
- Details
- Commissioned to curate an international exhibition, entitled 'Intertextuality: Hang Chunhui Solo Exhibition', featuring more than 20 artworks by leading Beijing-based Chinese artist, Hang Chunhui. The exhibition was organised by the Asia Art Center (ACC) and presented in its galleries in Taipei and Beijing. The exhibition publication (Asia Art Center, 2020, 235 pages) included essays by curator, Sophie McIntyre and Pi Li, curator at M+ Museum, Hong Kong. A panel discussion (including speakers Sophie McIntyre, Hang Chun-hui and artist, Yao Jui-chung) was held in Taipei during the exhibition.
- Type
- Committee Role/Editor or Chair of an Academic Conference
- Reference year
- 2016
- Details
- Appointed (through an internationally competitive process) to be an International Convenor in 34th World Congress of Art History held for the first time in Beijing. This involved visiting Beijing for preliminary and post-conference meetings with CIHA International Committee members, calling for and selecting abstracts for the panel, co-chairing a conference panel (with the Director of the Palace Museum), and contributing towards the conference publication. http://www.ciha.org/content/sed-ut
- Type
- Curatorial role (head curator, membership of curatorial board) of a prestigious event
- Reference year
- 2015
- Details
- Commissioned to curate a major international exhibition, 'Ink Remix: contemporary art from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong', which featured contemporary art works by 14 artists from this region. The exhibition toured to four museums in Australia (2015-2017) (Canberra Museum and Art Gallery; Bendigo Art Gallery; UNSW Galleries; Museum of Brisbane). An exhibition catalogue, comprising extended essays by the curator, and Chinese art scholars from Harvard and Cornell universities was published (Canberra Museum and Art Gallery, 2014, 88 pages). During its tour the exhibition attracted significant scholarly and media attention (eg. https://www.artshub.com.au/news/reviews/ink-remix-contemporary-art-from-mainland-china-taiwan-and-hong-kong-249282-2349780/ and for more see E-prints).
- Type
- Funding Award
- Reference year
- 2015
- Details
- Recipient of a publication subsidy ($AUD12,000) from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation in Taiwan to do new research (and cover editing costs) for my monograph, 'Imagining Taiwan: the Role of Art in Taiwan's Quest for Identity' (Brill, 2018, 348 pages).
Supervision
Current supervisions
- Sociological Plant Studies: Agency and the (More-than-Human) Pluriverse
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Jane Turner, Ms Susan Loh - Translating Intercultural Identity through reflective creative practice and contemporary paper cutting
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Courtney Pedersen, Dr Charles Robb - The Influence of Digital Geographies on Public Art: The Evolution of Online Creative Practice
MPhil, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Courtney Pedersen