Archive of Author | Alasdair Foster

About Alasdair Foster

Alasdair Foster is a writer, researcher and award-winning curator who works worldwide, especially in Asia and Latin America. He has twenty years’ experience heading national arts institutions in Europe and Australia and over thirty-five years of working in the public cultural sector. He was the founding director of Fotofeis, the award-winning international biennale of photo-based art in Scotland, the largest photo-art event in Europe in the 1990s. From 1998 to 2011, he was director of the Australian Centre for Photography, greatly extending its international profile, increasing six-fold participation in its learning programs, and developing innovative approaches to community engagement. He has also served as editor of Photofile magazine (1998–2009), president of the Contemporary Art Organisations of Australia (2002–06), and chair of the Conference for European Photographers (1997). Latterly, he was Professor of Culture in Community Wellbeing in the School of Public Health at The University of Queensland, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Art of RMIT University, Melbourne, until he retired in 2022. He has a BSc in physics (University of Edinburgh), and a PhD in participatory culture and the democratisation of twenty-first-century arts policy (Monash University, Melbourne). A polymath, he has worked as an artist, academic, curator, writer, editor, researcher, policy advisor and commercial photographer, integrating each experience into an expansive world view.

Alasdair Foster is a writer, researcher and award-winning curator who works worldwide, especially in Asia and Latin America. He has twenty years’ experience heading national arts institutions in Europe and Australia and over thirty-five years of working in the public cultural sector.

He was the founding director of Fotofeis, the award-winning international biennale of photo-based art in Scotland, the largest photo-art event in Europe in the 1990s. From 1998 to 2011, he was director of the Australian Centre for Photography, greatly extending its international profile, increasing six-fold participation in its learning programs, and developing innovative approaches to community engagement. He has also served as editor of Photofile magazine (1998–2009), president of the Contemporary Art Organisations of Australia (2002–06), and chair of the Conference for European Photographers (1997).

Latterly, he was Professor of Culture in Community Wellbeing in the School of Public Health at The University of Queensland, and Adjunct Professor in the School of Art of RMIT University, Melbourne, until he retired in 2022. He has a BSc in physics (University of Edinburgh), and a PhD in participatory culture and the democratisation of twenty-first-century arts policy (Monash University, Melbourne). A polymath, he has worked as an artist, academic, curator, writer, editor, researcher, policy advisor and commercial photographer, integrating each experience into an expansive world view.

 

Articles with Alasdair Foster

Boris Eldagsen: The Woman Who Never Was

The winners of the 2023 Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA) – reputedly the world’s largest photography competition – were announced in March. The image that won the Creative section was by the German artist Boris Eldagsen. Entitled ‘The Electrician’, it is a haunting image of two women: the older hiding behind the younger. A man’s hand appears mysteriously from out of frame. The vibe is 1940s retro and, while the image has its own enigmatic beauty, there is something uncanny about it.

Perhaps what underlies this sense of the uncanny are two facts: the young women and her shy companion never existed… and this is not a photograph. The image is from a series called ‘Pseudomnesia’ created by the artist using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) image-generation system called DALL E2.