Meet the artist - John Reid
John Reid (Graphic Design) 1972, BA (ANU) 1973, MFA (UNSW) 1995, is an Emeritus Fellow of the Australian National University (ANU). He is a practising visual artist working in photography, collage and performance art about the environment, human rights and cultural identity. He has exhibited and undertaken art residencies both nationally and internationally. He is currently contracted by the University of Canberra as a visual art mentor on an art recovery program for the Australian Defence Force.
John Reid was an ANU Creative Arts Fellow from 1977-79 and was a staff member at the ANU School of Art from 1978–2013. During this period, he integrated his visual art practice into his role as a tertiary visual arts researcher, educator, curator and graphic designer. He developed the nationally awarded ANU School of Art Field Study Program in 1996 subsequently convening 46 semester programs and field coordinating 30 programs in remote, rural and suburban environments across all eastern Australian states. He established the ANU School of Art Environment Studio in 2000. John Reid was a Chief Investigator of the Engaging Visions Research Project (EV Project) 2007–10, financed by the Australian Research Council with the Murray-Darling Basin Commission as Industry Partner. Artists participating in Field Study Programs, and the community they encountered, were evaluated by the EV Project to configure a model procedure which has since been adapted in both secondary and tertiary art education curricula in Australia. Since 2014, the Field Study Program procedure has been applied in community initiatives outside the educational sector such as the Four Winds’ Bermagui Project: Creative Field Studies (2017-18) funded by Create NSW.
John Reid is a nationally and internationally awarded graphic designer for book design and typeface design respectively. As a writer he prescribed, in a 2011 commission for the Queensland Government, an approach to the World Heritage List Selection Criterion VII – that addresses superlative natural phenomena, areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance – for a proposed World Heritage listing of Cape York Peninsula. In 2015, he wrote book chapters about change in the visual arts and, jointly, about the reciprocal relationship that develops between artists and scientists who share research in the field. He has had extensive experience in engaging and collaborating with journalists in relation to visual art research and professional practice.
In 2015-16, John Reid undertook a consultancy for the United Nations University International Institute of Global Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to develop an art strategy for the creative involvement of fine artists in the aesthetic visualisation of the determinants of health and wellbeing in urban environments. The main published outcome of the commission, THRIVE GLOBAL, consisting of text and creative art, was released for UN Habitat III, Quito, Ecuador in 2016.
John Reid’s artwork is held in private collections and at the University of Canberra; the Australian National University; Chang Mai University, Thailand; the Centre for Art + Environment, Nevada Museum of Art; Canberra Museum and Gallery; and Health Services, ACT Government.
