Biography
Cara-Ann Simpson is an artist, curator, cultural heritage expert and consultant, with a background as an executive director, property manager, conservation manager, and educator.
She is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on sensory engagement, digital technologies, space and the participant. Cara-Ann is engaged with cultural heritage, landscape, sensoria and how people interact with their environment.
In 2017, Cara-Ann became extremely ill, spending close to a year in hospital with an extreme brain infection, eventually being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and Neurosarcoidosis. She spent a number of months in rehabilitation learning how to walk again and become stronger. During this period picking flowers and going for short walks outside became a lifeline to regaining optimism for the future and finding her way back to creating art. She currently lives with her partner Michael, and their two dogs – Sebastian and Eddie – on the lands of the Wakka Wakka nation on a farm in Queensland.
Executive Director + Managerial Experience
Cara-Ann currently provides consultancy services for organisations and individuals in the arts and cultural industries.
She specialises in community consultation and engagement, strategic planning and the professional development of artists and arts workers. She was the Curator/Gallery Director of Hervey Bay Regional Gallery (HBRG) from 2019-2021 for Fraser Coast Regional Council in Queensland, Australia. In this role she led the HBRG team and strategic direction of the venue, alongside caring for the municipal art collection.
Cara-Ann was the inaugural Director of Cruden Farm, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch’s iconic property in Langwarrin, Victoria (2016-18), but had to resign due to unexpected illness, later diagnosed as Multiple Sclerosis, after only 6 months of active work. Her contributions to Cruden Farm included policy creation & implementation; management & strategic plan; property hire & volunteer programs; and “big picture” planning for the ongoing maintenance, conservation and promotion of the diverse range of property assets. In 2017, Cara-Ann received the Young Alumnus of the Year Award from the University of Southern Queensland.
She was the Mornington Peninsula Regional Manager for the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) from 2014 until 2016. During this period Cara-Ann lived onsite at Mulberry Hill, the estate of Sir Daryl (artist) and Lady Joan (artist & author) Lindsay, in a cottage previously occupied by Rick Amor (artist) and his family. Cara-Ann was the regional manager for the Mornington Peninsula, with three significant properties under her management: Mulberry Hill (Langwarrin), McCrae Homestead (McCrae), and Endeavour Fern Gully (Red Hill). With an enthusiastic volunteer team & dedicated regional Members Branch, Cara-Ann oversaw the repair and re-opening of Mulberry Hill to the public, as well as the reconstruction of the garden, and much need conservation work across the properties. A particular highlight of her time included the curation of the exhibition Return to Hanging Rock: celebrating 40 years of Picnic at Hanging Rock, along with design & production of exhibition and property specific merchandise.
From 2011-2014 Cara-Ann was the curator at Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, the public art gallery of the City of Darebin, Melbourne, and the City of Darebin art and history collection. During this period she curated and produced more than 30 exhibitions, including a survey show of women artists in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Northern Lights; while the co-curated (with Malte Wagenfeld) exhibition Cloudy Sensoria explored sensory installations from the visual to olfactory senses & aural. Cara-Ann also managed, conserved and curated the Darebin Art & History Collection during this period; putting new policies & procedures in place meeting Museums Australia standards and ensuring a much larger percentage of the collection was on display across municipal buildings, as well as enabling much of the collection to go live online.
Cara-Ann was the Artistic Co-Director & Co-Producer of Electrofringe Ltd from January 2011 – April 2013, a not-for-profit electronic arts organisation with year-round programming in Australia, and remained on the Board of Directors until December 2013.
Artistic + Academic Achievements
From Australia and New Zealand to United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Singapore, United States and Canada – Cara-Ann has exhibited, presented papers, recorded soundscapes and provided educational experiences.
In 2023, Cara-Ann received a Regional Arts Fund – Project Grant from Regional Arts Australian (administered in Queensland by Flying Arts Alliance) to extend Furari Flores into a multisensory arts experience for exhibition at the University of Southern Queensland Art Gallery in 2024. In 2022, Cara-Ann won the Heysen Prize for Landscape from the Hahndorf Academy in South Australia, with her first formal video work, narratio regenerationis (the narrative of rebirth) 2022. She was commissioned by Outer Space (Brisbane) to produce work for SUPERCUT, alongside delivering artwork for the Herston Quarter Temporary Public Art Project (Cultural Capital, Brisbane).
In 2021, Cara-Ann was one of three artists to receive a Toowoomba Arts Footprint Artist Residency, allowing her to expand Furari Flores and lead a creative community project Spectral Sensoria. This project was fully funded by Arts Queensland and South West QLD Regional Arts as part of the Toowoomba Arts Footprint Artists in Residency program.
In 2020, Cara-Ann’s work was selected as a finalist for the Queensland Regional Art Awards, touring Queensland across 2020-2022. In 2020, she also received Highly Commended in the Queensland Outsider Art Awards at Art From The Margins.
In 2013, she published an extended journal article with collaborator Eva Cheng (DSP & research engineer) in the International Journal of Art & Technology, was commissioned by Albury City Council and acquired into the Toowoomba Regional Council and Albury City Council art collections.
Cara-Ann received the 2012 Flanagan Art Exhibition winner of the University of Ballarat Emerging Artist Prize (St. Patrick’s College, Ballarat) as well as winning the Digital/Photographic Print Award at the Albert Park College Art Show (2012). In 2012, Cara-Ann has had an International solo exhibition, Resonations #1: cyclic glass, at Noxious Sector Projects in Seattle, WA, USA, and was interviewed by Camila Galaz on Radio Valerie’s “Let’s Art,” available on mixcloud.
In 2011, Cara-Ann received a New Work (Media Arts) Music Board Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts and an International Program: Cultural Exchange Grant from Arts Victoria. She presented at Subtle Technologies Festival & Symposium in Toronto, Canada, and the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey. Cara-Ann received a Young Artists’ Grant, City of Melbourne to support the exhibition of Geo Sound Helmets at Kings ARI in Melbourne, Australia.
Geo Sound Helmets is a breath responsive installation that has been in development since 2008. The installation, exhibited in 2011 at Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin, NZ and Kings ARI, Melbourne, was produced in collaboration with technical team: Ben Landau (industrial design), James Laird (biomedical engineer, programming) and Eva Cheng (research engineer).
In 2010 she received an ArtStart grant, Australia Council for the Arts, and attended the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME2010, Singapore) where she presented a paper with collaborator Eva Cheng (research engineer) on an interactive sound installation. The Janet Holmes á Court Artists’ Grant Scheme supported the development of this installation in 2009, and Cara-Ann was subsequently featured in Real Time Magazine’s online Studio section.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts First Class Honours from the University of Southern Queensland in 2008, and received the University of Southern Queensland Faculty of Arts medal in 2007. Simpson was the recipient of the Hobday and Hingston Bursary from the Queensland Art Gallery in 2007 for being the most promising undergraduate student from a Queensland tertiary art course. Cara-Ann also received the Asia-Pacific Golden Key International Honours Society Visual & Performing Arts Sculpture Award (2008), and was short-listed in the Wilson HTM National Art Prize (2009), and Agendo (2009).
Simpson has had a number of solo exhibitions, sound releases and been involved in numerous performances and group shows within Australia, New Zealand, United States, Canada and United Arab Emirates. Her work is held in public and private collections across Australia, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Note that all views expressed on this website are Cara-Ann’s own views and do not necessarily reflect associated organisations and institutions.
Photo credits (from top to bottom): Cara-Ann Simpson self-portrait 2022. Cara-Ann Simpson “Self-portrait of a sound artist” 2012.