Alana Jelinek

I am a practicing artist. I also write theory of art, focusing on the role and value of art in society.

I spent 9 years working with anthropologists, and a few archaeologists at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge (2009-2018) and also at the Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden Netherlands).

My scholarly (meaning written, academic) work describes the discipline of art, the type of knowledge that art produces, the role of art in democracy, and also the ethics of inter- and multi-disciplinary work with artists.

In addition to writing scholarly books and articles, I write fiction as one of many approaches to making art. I also have done performances, made paintings, curated exhibitions, faciliated participatory interventions and made sound work.

The monograph I am currently working on is called 'Between Discipline and a Hard Place' (Bloomsbury), in which I argue that artists and artists alone should define art - not audiences, critics, historians, governments or the market.

I also argue that art produces knowledge akin to any other knowledge-forming discipline - that art IS a discipline - and that art is not simply the equivalent of creativity. Because art is a discipline art practice requires education (albeit not necessarily a university education).

In addition to writing theory as an artist, I also conduct research through my art practice.
One area I investigated is the question of repatriation and belonging of both people and things.
Another is the colonial entanglements of West Papua, which is currently occupied - brutally - by Indonesia and formerly by the Dutch.
And the history Fiji, myths of cannibalism, and particularly the perpetuation of 'cannibal myths' through ethnographic artefacts, such as the Fijian 'cannibal fork'.

My PhD was in art as a democratic act, so I guess I should mention that here as well...