What your stuff says about you

Professor Chris McAuliffe and his University of Queensland colleague are engaged in a project of modern archaeology, uncovering new insights about the late artist Robert Smithson by trawling through an archive of his belongings. Which raises the question: to what extent can we understand someone by examining what they own?

We discover that the answer isn’t so simple. Our conversation takes us from our relationship to objects, to the degree to which we can truly know someone, to how much we even reveal about ourselves.

Dr Chris McAuliffe is Professor of Art (Practice-led research) at the School of Art and Design, Australian National University and the Sir William Dobell Chair at the ANU Centre for Art History and Theory. From 2000–2013 he was Director of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne. He taught art history at the University of Melbourne (1988-2000) and was Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University (2011–12). Dr McAuliffe has curated exhibitions on Australian and international art. Recent projects include the exhibitions Robert Smithson: Time Crystals, University of Queensland Art Museum, 2018; We who love: Sidney Nolan’s slate paintings, University of Queensland Art Museum and Heide, 2016; and America: Painting a nation, Art Gallery of NSW, 2013.

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The theme music for Better Things is “One More Time” by Fab Beat.

Better Things is a production of the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences. It’s produced by Evana Ho.

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