Dr Tracey M Benson is an Australian based interdisciplinary artist, UX designer, researcher and founder of Treecreate.

For over 15 years water has been a central theme in her creative research practice and over this time she has produced numerous creating and collaborative projects, educational programs and artist residencies. 

She is passionate about more-than-human design and bridging the links between western ways of thinking with experiential and interconnected knowledge. Tracey works at the nexus of media arts, digital transformation, ecological systems and citizen empowerment. Her work focuses on issues related to belonging, place, wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviour change. 

Creative 

Examples of creative projects include:

There have been numerous other artists, First Nations representatives, technologists and scientists who have collaborated with Tracey on some of the individual projects. For example: Rloss
Thompson, Andrew Hornblow, Nigel Helyer, Lee Joachim, Sharon Atkinson, Harete Tito, Julianne Preston, Leah Barclay, Martin Drury, Josiah Jordan, Anne-Britt Rage, Aishling Muller, Kate Genevieve, Sandy Sur, Maggie Buxton, Kim Newall and many more

Educational programs focused on water

2017: Curated three day intensive workshop, SCANZCBR 2017 explored themes of ocean, forms of energy, climate and interconnection through the flows of the rivers to the sea under the title of From the mountains to the sea: Ocean Energy. Hosted by the Centre for Applied Water Science at University of Canberra.

2021: Co-designed and facilitated the international program Meeting of the Waters: Locative Media Oceania in collaboration with Supercluster, funded by the Centre for Applied Water Science at University of Canberra.

2023: Curated and organised Weaving Waters @ Yarun, an 11 day interdisciplinary in-person and online transdisciplinary residency / creative incubator in late 2023 – funded by Regional Arts Australia and Regional Arts Development Fund.

Watery websites

Water related publications by the artist

Peer reviewed chapters

2024 Benson, Tracey (2024), ‘Ripples from Yarun’, in Capucci, Pier Luigi (ed) Dialogues across the Seas. The Ocean that keeps us apart also joins us. Charting knowledge and practice in the Anthropocene, NOEMA Publishing, ISBN: 978-88-943827-6-1

2023 URBAN NATURES: Living the More-than-Human City. Edited by Ferne Edwards, Lucia Alexandra
Popartan and Ida Nilstad Pettersen, Berghahn Books,  https://doi.org/10.3167/9781805390824

2021 Indigenous Art, Resilience and Climate Change: Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and Samoa,
Devy, G. (Ed.). (2021). Environment and Belief Systems. London: Routledge India,
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367814274 

2014 Water Views: Caring and Daring – Waterwheel World Water Day Symposium 2014–3WDS14,
E-book, PDF, 2015 (pp.362-366)

Peer reviewed journals

2023 Paul Brown, Tracey M Benson; From Thought Forms to Art Concret: Tracey M Benson interviews Paul Brown. Leonardo; doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_a_02425 

2022 Learning lessons from the Onewater, series on water pedagogies edited by Sritama Chatterjee. NiCHE Journal, Network in Canadian History & Environment | Nouvelle initiative Canadienne en histoire de l’environnement

2021 Walking together: Artistic collaboration across cultures in Australia and New Zealand,
The Canadian Journal of Action Research,  Vol 21 No 3,  Action Research and Indigenous Ways of
Knowing, DOI: https://doi.org/10.33524/cjar.v21i3.511 

2021 Enabling enduring evidence-based policy for the Southern Ocean through cultural arts practices
PERSPECTIVE article, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, doi: 10.3389/fevo.2021.616089
Lisa Roberts, Tracey Benson, Danae Fiore, Paul Fletcher, Ellery Johnson, Cat Kutay, Jess
Melbourne-Thomas, Katherina Petrou, Melissa Silk, Stephen Taberner, Victor V. Filgueira and Andrew
J. Constable

References

For a working list of references and resources, check out this document: Water resources (Google Doc)

Curriculum Vitæ

For a full list of works refer to Academic CV – Dr Tracey M Benson (Google Doc)