Biography

Lily Hibberd is an interdisciplinary artist and writer working on frontiers of time, memory and the cosmos. Her projects combine performance, writing, painting, photography, sound, moving image and installation art. Developed in collaboration with artists, scientists and historians, the resulting work has been presented in 68 major or international exhibitions, events and festivals. Prominent art-science projects include "Venus: New perspectives towards 2031”, “Boundless – Out of Time" for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney - NIRIN in 2020, "Data Horizons" for the 2017 Edinburgh Science Festival, and "First Light" for the International Year of Light at the Musée des arts et métiers in 2015. In 2021, Lily embarked on an extended speculative science/artistic exploration of the planet Venus. This led her to initiate “Venus Conversations 2024-2034” with art-science curators Annick Bureaud and Claudia Schnugg, launched at London's Science Museum in 2024. Lily is founding editor of the art writing publication un Magazine, and a researcher at Université Paris Cité and adjunct lecturer at UNSW Sydney.

Extended Biography

Lily Hibberd is an interdisciplinary artist and writer working on frontiers of time, memory and the cosmos. Her projects combine performance, writing, painting, photography, sound, moving image and installation art. Developed in collaboration with artists, scientists and historians, the resulting work has been presented in 68 major or international exhibitions, events and festivals.

Her interdisciplinary art practice spans early work, which centred on a study of cinematic aesthetics in painting and its temporal activation into installations combining theatre lighting, sound and video. 

Subsequently, Lily founded the experimental art writing publication un Magazine. During this period, Lily also embraced writing as an integral part of her practice, producing texts that featured in numerous performances and sound installations, all pivoting on questions of memory. 

In the following years, Lily's practice was concerned with marginalised memory, and collaborative and community centred work alongside intensive research and residencies. She also completed a PhD in this period, focused on writing and the voice as boundary conditions. In 2012, Parragirls Memory Project was launched, which Lily supported as a curator, writer and creative producer until 2019. 

Time has been a consistent topic in Lily’s work across different media, featured in painting installations, performance and video projects. Expanded notions around the cosmos has been another significant theme in Lily’s work, involving numerous collaborations with scientists and historians of astronomy. She has realised major projects on this topic for the 2015 UNESCO Year of Light, the 2017 Edinburgh Science Festival, and the 22nd Biennale of Sydney - NIRIN in 2020. In 2021, Lily began to work in dialogue with the planet Venus. This led her to initiate “Venus Conversations 2024-2034” with art-science curators Annick Bureaud and Claudia Schnugg, launched at the Science Museum, London in 2024.

Lily is a researcher at Université Paris Cité and adjunct lecturer at UNSW Sydney.

Curriculum Vitae

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EDUCATION

PhD, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Masters of Fine Art, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne University, Australia.

Bachelor of Fine Art, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS, INSTALLATIONS & PERFORMANCES (selected)

2025 - Venus touches Earth, public performance, Great Exhibition Road Festival, Imperial College, London, UK.

2024 - Venus Conversations documentary exhibition, Science Museum, London.

2024 - Venus Chalk Drawing, participatory performance for The Great Exhibition Road Festival, London, UK, 15-16 June.

2023 - Planet Venus: probing, dreaming, knowing, “LASER Paris - Planetary portraits” curated by Annick Bureaud and Carine Le Malet, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France.

2020 - Boundless – out of time, 22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN, with Sydney Observatory and Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney.

2018 - Parragirls Past, Present immersive film created with Alex Davies, Volker Kuchelmeister and Parragirls, ZKM Centre for Art and New Media, Karlsruhe, Germany.

2018 - Parragirls Past, Present immersive film created with Alex Davies, Volker Kuchelmeister and Parragirls, VR installation at SXSW film festival and Melbourne International Film Festival.

2017 - Data Horizons, Edinburgh International Science Festival, Summerhall, Scotland.

2017 - Parragirls Past, Present immersive film created with Alex Davies, Volker Kuchelmeister and Parragirls, UNSW EPICentre, Big Anxiety festival commission, Sydney, Australia.

2017 - The Public Secret, with Bonney Djuric and Jenny McNally, ‘Group Therapy: mental distress in a digital age’, curated by Vanessa Bartlett, commissioned for The Big Anxiety festival, Sydney.

2017 - Parramatta Girls Home audio walk, with Alex Davies and Parragirls, The Big Anxiety festival, Sydney, Australia.

2015 - First Light, Musee des arts et metiers, Paris, France.

2015 - Beta Persei, Galerie de Roussan, Paris, France.

2015 - Éclipse [...] Diaphane, Galerie de Roussan, Paris, France.

2015 - It goes both ways: moving images between different times and places, commissioned for ‘Spaced 2’, Perth International Arts Festival, Western Australian Museum, Australia.

2014 - The Phone Booth Project in collaboration with Curtis Taylor, screening in Les Rencontres Internationales, Gaité Lyrique, Paris, France / Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany.

2014 - Twin Cinema: 4 Devils and a Woman in Red, commissioned for The Cinemas Project, Latrobe Regional Gallery, Victoria, Australia.

2013 - Ice Pendulum, Canal Saint Martin, Nuit Blanche festival, Paris, France.

2012 - The Phone Booth Project with Curtis Taylor, commissioned for We Don’t Need a Map, Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth, Australia.

2012 - Anti-panopticon, Museum of Freud’s Dreams, St Petersburg, Russia.

2012 -The Woman in the Bridge, ArtBAR, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia.

2011 - Seeking a Meridian, Galerie de Roussan, Paris, France.

2011 - Benevolent Asylum: just for fun with WART, for WALK program Performance Space, Sydney.

2011 - Benevolent Asylum: an eclipse of historical fiction, Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth, Australia.

2010 - BookBUS, various sites Sydney, P4 (pilot) and Performance Space, Sydney, Australia.

2009 - First Love, GRANTPIRRIE, Sydney, Australia.

2009 - Deadman Monologue, Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Canberra, Australia.

2008 - Bordertown, Artspace, Sydney, Australia.

2008 - Endless summer: sunglasses and the spectacle of vision, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Australia.

2008 - Bordertown, Conical Inc, Melbourne, Australia.

2008 - Time and Again, Melbourne City Laneways commission, Melbourne, Australia.

2007 - The Perfect Future Game, performance at Arc Biennial, QUT Museum, Brisbane, Australia.

2007 - Endless summer: sunglasses and the spectacle of vision, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, Australia.

2006 - I want to break free, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

2005 - Dangerous Liaisons, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, Melbourne, Australia.

2004 - Paint Tin Fantasias, The Farm, Brisbane.

2004 - SLEEPWALKER: cinema & dreams, Kings Artist-run space, Melbourne, Australia.

2003 - Blinded by the Light, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Australia.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS & COLLECTIVE PROJECTS (selected)

2025 - Éclipse [...] Diaphane in ‘SPACE: Internal Illuminations”, Fotografiska Shanghai, China.

2025 - Venusian Rover in ‘Cosmos Archaeology: Explorations in Time and Space’, National Museum of China, Beijing, China.

2025 - Venusian Rover in ‘Cosmos Archaeology: Explorations in Time and Space’, Guangdong Science Center, China.

2024 - Venusian Rover in ‘Cosmos Archaeology: Explorations in Time and Space’, Astronomy Museum, Shanghai, China.

2022 - ‘Parragirls Past, Present’ with Alex Davies, Volker Kuchelmeister and Parragirls, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Melbourne, Australia.

2022 - Venusian Rover, “Cosmos Archaeology: Explorations in Time and Space”, EPFL Pavilions, Lausanne, Switzerland.

2020 - Displacement, ‘Beyond: Design Futures Festival’, Karlsruhe, Germany.

2020 - Prototype, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Australia.

2019 - Politics of Place, curated by Alexander Campos and Monica Oppen, Center for Book Art, NYC, USA.

2019 - ‘The Phone Booth Project’ with Curtis Taylor, in UNTITLED (UURA), Perth Institute for Contemporary Arts, Australia.

2017 - Networking the Unseen, curator Gretta Louw, Villa Merkel, Stuggart, Germany.

2017 - ‘9 X 5 NOW’ curator Elizabeth Gower, VCA, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Melbourne, Australia.

2016 - L’Oeil du collectionneur. Neuf collections particulieres strasbourgeoises, Musee d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.

2016 - Networking the unseen. Furtherfield, London, UK.

2016 - We Don’t Need a Map: A Martu experience of the Western Desert, East Pilbara Arts Centre and Martumili Gallery, Newman, Australia.

2016 - Drawing Now, Carreau du Temple, Paris, France.

2016 - [ 0°C ], blanClass, Yokohama, Japan.

2015 - New Frontiers, Linden New Art, Melbourne, Australia.

2015 - Polar Time: a year in six minutes, one sunrise, VOLTA11 Basel, Switzerland.

2015 - Seeking a Meridian, ‘Counting Bone’, Affiliated Text, Sydney, Australia.

2015 - We Don’t Need a Map: A Martu experience of the Western Desert, regional gallery tour.

2015 - Island Salon/Underbelly Arts Festival, Cockatoo Island, Sydney, Australia.

2014 - Pixeling: rencontre pour l’art video, Garage Turenne, Paris, France.

2013 - Mémoires Vives: une histoire de l’art aborigène, Musée d’Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France.

2013 - Ice Pendulum, The Solo Project, MOVING ART, Basel, Switzerland.

2013 - Easy Listening, curator Philipa Veitch, West Space, Melbourne, Australia.

2012 - I Would Breathe Water, curator Kit Wise, Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne.

2012 - Formal Intensity: Australian Art Today, Tsagaandarium Art gallery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

2012 - Coup de Soleil in ‘Build me a city,’ curator Vivonne Thwaites, commissioned for Adelaide Architecture Biennale, Australian Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, Australia.

2011 - SubText: artists and writing, curator Zara Stanhope, West Space, Melbourne, Australia.

2008 - The Leisure Class, curator Kathryn Weir, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia.

2008 - The last thing I remember, curator Kyla McFarlane, University of Sydney Art Gallery, Australia.

2007 - Arc Biennial, QUT Museum, Brisbane, Australia.

2003 - Art + Film, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne, Australia.

2002 - Mnemotech, curator Bec Dean, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Perth, Western Australia.

2001 - Look See: 5 contemporary painters, curator Natasha Bullock, Monash University Gallery, Australia.

RESIDENCIES & AWARDS (selected)

2023-24 - Artist research residency, Science Museum, London, United Kingdom.

2023-24 - Creative Australia (Australia Council for the Arts), Visual Arts project grant.

2020 - Artist residency, Sydney Observatory and Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney.

2019 - UNSW Dean’s Best Creative Work Award for Parragirls Past, Present, 2017.

2016 - Leverhulme Trust Fellowship, artist in residence at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK.

2014-15 - Artist in residence Musée des arts et métiers and Observatory of Paris, France.

2014 - Spaced 2, residency with remote Western Desert Aboriginal communities, Australia.

2013-14 - The Cinemas Project/National Exhibitions Touring Scheme regional Victorian artist residency.

2012 - TERRA Art Foundation, Summer School visiting professor residency, Giverny, France.

2010-11 - Performance Space (Sydney) fellowships and awards to collaboratively develop Benevolent Asylum and BookBUS participatory art projects in communities, Sydney, Australia.

2009 - Art Gallery of NSW Paris Cité International des Arts studio residency, Paris, France.

2006 - Studio residency, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, Melbourne, Australia.

2000 - National Winner, UBS Art Award, Whitechapel Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

1999 - Postgraduate Award, National Gallery of Victoria Women’s Association.

EDITORIAL & CURATORIAL ACTIVITIES (highlights)

2022 - Co-producer and writer, Cosmos Archaeology: Explorations in Time and Space, EPFL Pavilions, curated Sarah Kenderdine, Lausanne, Switzerland.

2021 - Assistant producer and writer, Deep Fakes: Art and Its Double, exhibition at EPFL Pavilions, curated by Sarah Kenderdine, Lausanne, Switzerland.

2020 - Co-editor, with Martine Beugnet, “Absorbed in experience”, dossier in Screen, issue 61(4).

2012-18 - Co-founder and creative director of Parramatta Female Factory Precinct Memory Project.

2011 - Curator, Unseen Forces, International Contemporary Art Newtown, Sydney, Australia.

2004-09 Founding editor un Magazine.

Slide Show

Contact

Email

lilyhibberdstudio [insert@] pm.me