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Professor, School of Art, RMIT University

Professor Daniel Palmer is Associate Dean of Research and Innovation in the School of Art at RMIT University. Prior to joining RMIT in 2018, he was Associate Dean of Graduate Research and Associate Professor in the Art History & Theory Program at MADA, the Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture at Monash University. His research and professional practice focuses on contemporary art and cultural theory, with a particular emphasis on photography and digital media. Before becoming a full time academic, Palmer worked as a curator at the Centre for Contemporary Photography where he also served as a board member.

Palmer’s book publications include Installation View: Australian Photography Exhibitions 1848–2020 (Perimeter Editions 2021) with Martyn Jolly; Photography and Collaboration: From Conceptual Art to Crowdsourcing (Bloomsbury 2017); Digital Light (Open Humanities Press, 2015), edited with Sean Cubitt and Nathaniel Tkacz; The Culture of Photography in Public Space (Intellect 2015), edited with Anne Marsh and Melissa Miles; Twelve Australian Photo Artists (Piper Press, 2009), co-authored with Blair French; and Photogenic (Centre for Contemporary Photography, 2005). His scholarly writings on photography and contemporary art have appeared in journals such as Photographies, Philosophy of Photography, Angelaki, Reading Room and the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art. Palmer has also published over sixty catalogue essays and fifty art reviews since 1997, in art magazines including Art and Australia, Photofile and Frieze.

Palmer has been a Chief Investigator on multiple successful ARC projects, including the ARC Discovery Project ‘Genealogies of Digital Light’ (2008-11) with Sean Cubitt and Les Walkling; an ARC Linkage Project ‘Photography as a Crime’ (2009-2012) with Melissa Miles, Daniel Palmer, Mark Davison and the Centre for Contemporary Photography; the ARC Discovery Project ‘Curating Photography in the Age of Photosharing' (2015-2017) with Martyn Jolly; and the ARC Discovery Project ‘Digital Photography: Mediation, Memory and Visual Communication’ (2020–22) with Scott McQuire, Nikos Papastergiadis, Sean Cubitt and Celia Lury.

Experience

  • 2018–present
    Associate Dean, School of Art, RMIT University
  • 2014–2017
    Associate Dean, Graduate Research, MADA, Monash University
  • 2016–2017
    Associate Professor, Art History and Theory, Monash University
  • 2009–2015
    Senior Lecturer, Theory of Art & Design, Monash University
  • 2005–2008
    Lecturer, Theory of Art & Design, Monash University
  • 2003–2004
    Lecturer, Art History (0.4), University of Melbourne

Education

  • 2004 
    University of Melbourne, PhD
  • 1996 
    University of Western Australia, BA (Honours)