Meet the team
The Public Art Commission bring experience and a diverse range of skills to the projects they work on – across art in public contexts, architecture, project management, commissioning, education, archival research, stakeholder engagement and inter-disciplinary creative projects.
David Cross
Co-Director | david.cross@deakin.edu.au
David Cross is a Melbourne-based artist, curator and writer. His practice extends across performance, installation, sculpture, public art and video. In 2007 he founded Litmus Research initiative at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. Focused on the commissioning and scholarship of public art, Litmus produced a number of ground-breaking public art projects.
David Cross
David Cross is a Melbourne-based artist, curator and writer. His practice extends across performance, installation, sculpture, public art and video. Known for his examination of risk, pleasure and participation, David often utilises inflatable structures to negotiate inter-personal exchange.
In 2007 he founded Litmus Research initiative at Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand. Focused on the commissioning and scholarship of public art, Litmus produced a number of ground-breaking public art projects including One Day Sculpture, a series of temporary public artworks across five cities in New Zealand in 2008/9, developed with Claire Doherty from Situations, UK. He was the CAST 2011 international curator in residence in Hobart where he developed Iteration:Again - 13 Public Artworks Across Tasmania. He was Deputy Chair of the City of Melbourne Public Art Advisory Board in 2015/6 and a former arts-sector advisor for Creative New Zealand.
Since 2014 he has been Professor of Art and Performance at Deakin University where he developed Treatment, an iterative public art project staged at the Western Treatment Plant in Werribee, Victoria. He has published extensively on public and contemporary art.
Cameron Bishop
Co-Director | cameron.bishop@deakin.edu.au
Cameron Bishop (PhD) is an artist, writer and curator lecturing in Art and Performance at Deakin University. His work explores the shifting nature of the term public, ideas around place-making, and the body’s appearance and experience as a political, private, and social entity. As a curator he has helped initiate a number of public art projects including Treatment at the Western Treatment Plant; Sounding Histories at the Mission to Seafarers Melbourne; and the ongoing VACANTGeelong project.
Cameron Bishop
Cameron Bishop (PhD) is an artist, writer and curator lecturing in Art and Performance at Deakin University. As a curator he has helped initiate a number of public art projects including Treatment (2015/17) at the Western Treatment Plant; Sounding Histories at the Mission to Seafarers Melbourne with Annie Wilson; and the ongoing VACANTGeelong project with architectural and creative arts researchers, and leading Australian artists to explore and activate spaces left behind by de-industrialisation. As the recipient of a number of grants, awards and commissions he has been acknowledged for his community-focused approach to public art.
All of his work explores the shifting nature of the term public, ideas around place-making, and the body’s appearance and experience as a political, private, and social entity. To this end he has published writing in book chapters, journals and exhibition catalogues while addressing these issues in the artwork he makes, often in collaboration with the artist and engineer, Simon Reis. With David Cross, he has worked on consultancy projects including the Metro Tunnel Creative Strategy, which saw them team with Claire Doherty from the UK-based Public Art Commissioning agency, Situations.
Ilana Russell
Ilana Russell is a Geelong-based curator, producer and researcher. Her practice explores site specificity and response through the model of labs, residencies and cross-disciplinary collaborations. She is a researcher with Deakin University’s Public Art Commission, a producer for City of Melbourne’s Test Sites program and Executive Producer at Platform Arts in Geelong.
Ilana Russell
Ilana Russell is a Geelong-based curator, producer and researcher. Her practice explores site specificity and response through the model of labs, residencies and cross-disciplinary collaborations. She is a researcher with Deakin University’s Public Art Commission, a producer for City of Melbourne’s Test Sites program and Executive Director at Platform Arts in Geelong.
Ilana has produced works for the 58th International Venice Biennale, Melbourne Festival, White Night, Melbourne Fringe, New Zealand Festival (Wellington) and Public Art Melbourne; and with organisations including National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Arts Centre Melbourne, Arts House, Arts Access Victoria, ILBIJERRI Theatre, Black Arm Band and RMIT University.
Ilana sits on the board of Creative Geelong, and is a committee member of the G21 Arts, Heritage and Culture Pillar. She has a Master of Arts (Art in Public Space) at RMIT.
Sarah Jones
Sarah Jones (PhD) is a Geelong-based artist, writer and curator. Her research-based practice proposes publishing-as-process. Sarah is a researcher with Deakin University’s Public Art Commission and lectures in the School of Communication and Creative Arts. Sarah is also the curator of Third Space Gallery + Digital, an initiative of Creative Geelong.
Sarah Jones
Sarah Jones (PhD) is a Geelong-based artist, writer and curator. Her research-based practice proposes publishing-as-process. She is interested in publishing as an event that generates novelty in its search for self-realisation, which is both intrinsically valuable and constitutive of a specific public.
Sarah is a researcher with Deakin University’s Public Art Commission and lectures in the School of Communication and Creative Arts. She is the curator of Third Space Gallery + Digital, an initiative of Creative Geelong.
Rachel Morley
Rachel Morley is an artist and arts worker based in Wyndham (VIC). Through analogue photography and photo-collage, her arts practice explores relationships to place and the construction of memory. She is a Research Fellow with Deakin University’s Public Art Commission and Digital Communications Coordinator at Platform Arts, Geelong.
Rachel Morley
Rachel Morley is an artist and arts worker based in Wyndham (VIC). Through analogue photography and photo-collage, her practice explores relationships to place and the construction of memory. Drawing on experiences of insecure housing, her recent photographic works reflect on how power and inequality is created both within the rental market and through urban planning in Melbourne’s outer western suburbs.
Rachel has presented works in public spaces; hanging from rooftops, pasted onto bridges, and beamed from an LED light screen installed above a house. She has held solo gallery exhibitions at Analogue Academy (2022) and The Annex (2023), and has shown in various group exhibitions. Her work Housing should not be for profit was shortlisted for the 2023 Wyndham Art Prize.
Rachel currently works with Platform Arts as the Digital Communications Coordinator, and is a Research Fellow with Deakin University’s Public Art Commission.