Emily Wakeling is a curator and art writer. She is Curator of Rockhampton Museum of Art, and previously held positions at Artspace Mackay and the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art’s Asian and Pacific curatorium for the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art and a historical Japanese collection display. As a University of Queensland graduate, Emily has a Masters in Art History via the thesis ‘Girls are dancin”: shojo culture and feminism in contemporary Japanese art’ (2010). Working across curating, art writing, and museum learning, Emily spent six years in Tokyo in multiple arts-related roles including Editor of the arts website Tokyo Art Beat. As Co-director of Brisbane art space Boxcopy, Emily curated a program of local Indigenous and non-indigenous artists as well as All We Can Do is Pray, a group exhibition of Japan-based artists finding parallels between Japanese survivors of World War II and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Her curatorial projects are spread across Japan and Australia, including solo exhibitions of Archie Moore and Courtney Coombs in Tokyo art spaces, and the Japanese group exhibitions Come Close: Japanese Artists within their Communities at Bus Projects, Melbourne, and the 2021 project Compassionate Grounds: Ten Years on in Tohoku at Composite, Melbourne. Emily is also a long-serving freelance writer who has contributed to Artforum, ArtAsiaPacific, Japan Times, Tokyo Art Beat, Art Review Asia, Real Tokyo, Eyeline and Art Monthly Australia. Emily currently lives and works on Darumbal Country. 


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