DrFrancis Maravillas
Dr Francis Maravillas
Programme Leader, BA (Hons) Art Histories and Curatorial Practices: Asia and the World
- PhD (Humanities and Social Sciences), University of Technology Sydney, Australia
- BA Honours (First Class) (Politics), Macquarie University, Australia
Dr Francis Maravillas’s interests lie in modern and contemporary Asian art, curatorial practices and exhibition histories, socially engaged and performative practices in art.
Dr Maravillas’ teaching in art and curatorial studies is practice-based, collaborative and interdisciplinary. As Programme Leader of the BA (Hons) Art Histories and Curatorial Practices: Asia and the World and Senior Lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts, he is committed to the development of a strong and enriching nexus between teaching and research, one that is grounded in a practice-oriented and research-inspired approach to the study of art and curating.
His current research focuses primarily on the aesthetics and politics of food in contemporary Asian art. He is particularly interested in the various uses of food in performance, installation and socially engaged art in Asia, and the intersection of food, art and politics in a region marked by multiple and overlapping (post-)colonial histories and by processes of globalisation.
In 2019, Dr Maravillas co-curated the Bruised Food: A Living Laboratory exhibition at RMIT University Gallery, Melbourne. The exhibition explored the performative, relational and sensuous processes of the alimentary in art, its relation to the everyday and its entanglement in the political economy of survival in a globalising world.
Dr Maravillas has published journal articles, book chapters and exhibition catalogue essays on the Asia-Pacific Triennial exhibition series, Asian artists in the diaspora in Australia, and the politics of food and hospitality in contemporary Asian art.
He is the lead editor of Tastes of Justice: the aesthetics and politics of food-art practices in Asia and Australia (Routledge, 2025). This edited book examines the conjunction of food, art and the politics of care and justice, and the complexities of curating relational practices of commensality and hospitality in regional and transnational contexts.
In 2020, he co-edited the special issue of World Art journal, Contemporary art worlds and art publics in Southeast Asia (2020). The special issue examined the rapidly changing field of contemporary art in Southeast Asia, and the shifting structure, dynamics and influence of the region's contemporary ‘art worlds' and ‘art publics’.
He co-convened the international symposium Shifting Grounds, New Horizons: Thinking and doing contemporary Southeast Asian art now in 2022. The symposium sought to open new, critical horizons for understanding emergent trajectories in art and curatorial practice, projects of art history and exhibition history, and the shifting landscapes of contemporary Southeast Asian art.
Dr Maravillas is the Asia-Pacific area editor of the Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas journal. He was previously a board member of the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, Australia.
Research and practice
Publications (select)
Books
- Maravillas F., Marnie Badham and Stephen Loo (eds), Tastes of Justice: the politics of food-art practices in Asia and Australia, Routledge (forthcoming Routledge 2025)
Journal articles
- Maravillas F. and Michelle Antoinette, Contemporary Art Worlds and Art Publics in Southeast Asia, World Art, vol. 10, no. 2-3, pp. 161–190 (2020)
- Maravillas F, Margo Machida and Thomas Looser, Island Worlds, Oceanic Diasporas and Global Flows, Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas Journal, vol. 3, no.1-2, pp.1-7 (2017)
- Maravillas F., Boats, Borders and the Geo-Imaginaries of the South, Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, vol.1, no.1, pp. 1-22 (2013)
- Maravillas F., Constellations of the Contemporary: Art / Asia / Australia in Jacqueline Lo and Tseen Khoo (eds.) Asia at Home: New Trajectories in Asian Australian Studies, a special issue of the Journal of Australian Studies, vol. 32, issue 4, pp.433-44 (2008)
Book chapters
- Maravillas F. and Marnie Badham, The Gentle Art of ‘Bruised Food’: art and curation in times of crises in Grace McQuilten and Daniel Palmer (eds) The World We Want: Dystopian and Utopian Impulses in Art-Making, Intellect Books, Bristol (2023)
- Maravillas F., Participation and Place-Making in ruangrupa and Keg de Souza's Vertical Villages, MAM Documents 001: Trauma and Utopia: Interactions in Post-war and Contemporary Art in Asia, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, pp 34-39 (in Japanese) (2015)
- Maravillas F., The Unexpected Guest: Food and Hospitality in Contemporary Asian Art in Caroline Turner and Michelle Antoinette (eds) Contemporary Asian Art and Exhibitions: Connectivities and World-Making, ANU Press, Canberra (2014)
- Maravillas F., Un/settled Geographies: Vertigo and the Predicament of Australia’s Postcoloniality, in Catriona Elder (ed.) New visions, New Voices: Australian Studies in the Twenty-first Century, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, UK (2012)
- Maravillas F., The Poetics of the Uncanny: Art and Home in the Age of Mobility in Summar. Hipworth and Aaron Seeto (eds) Last Words, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, pp. 12-17 (2010)
- Maravillas F., Art Histories at the Crossroads: Asian Art in Australia in Jayne Anderson (ed.) Crossing Cultures: Conflict, Migration and Convergence: the proceedings of the 32nd International Congress of the History of Art, Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 900-904 (2008)
- Maravillas F., Haunted Cosmopolitanisms: Spectres of Chinese art in the Diaspora in Jeroen de Kloet and Edwin Jurriens (eds.) (with Afterword by Rey Chow) Cosmopatriots: On Distant Belongings and Close Encounters, Rodopi Press, Amsterdam and New York, pp.253-282 (2007)
- Maravillas F., Cartographies of the Future: The Asia-Pacific Triennials and the Curatorial Imaginary in John Clark, Maurizio Peleggi and T. K. Sabapathy, In the Eye of the Beholder: Reception and Audience for Modern Asian Art, University of Sydney East Asian Series and Wild Peony Press, Sydney, pp.244-270 (2006)
Industry reports
- Maravillas F., Information Cultural Exchange Creative Hubs: An Evaluation Report, commissioned by Information Cultural Exchange for the Australia Council for the Arts, pp. 1- 18 (2015)
- Maravillas F., Edge of Elsewhere: An Evaluation Report, commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre, Sydney for the Australia Council for the Arts. pp. 1-21 (2012)
Exhibitions
- Maravillas F and Marnie Badham, , Bruised Food: A Living Laboratory, RMIT Gallery Melbourne (2019)
Grants
- Lead researcher, Research Project Funding grant for Tastes of Justice: the aesthetics and politics of food-art practices in Asia and Australia, LASALLE College of the Arts (SGD 20,000) (2024)
- Applicant, Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups grant for Tastes of Justice: Cooking the Coda - art, performance and symposia in Sydney and Singapore, Creative Australia (AUD 49,526) (2024)
Professional practice activities
- Area editor (Asia-Pacific), Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas Journal (2016–current)
- Peer assessor, Creative Australia (2017–2020)
- Board member, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney (2003–2006)