Associate Lecturer - Natural Environment and Wilderness

Career Summary

Martin was educated at the Tasmanian School of Art at Hobart, University of Tasmania attaining a Bachelor of Fine Art with Honors in Photography in 1994. He also completed a Master of Fine Arts by Research, in Digital Stereoscopic Photography and Landscape, in 1998, and is currently undertaking a PhD at the Tasmanian School of Art, where he is also a part-time Lecturer and Course Coordinator of the Art and Natural Environment units. Walch has also established himself as Artist-in-Residence with Copper Mines of Tasmania at Mount Lyell, Western Tasmania. Awards and bursaries include: joint-winner Siglo magazine’s National Collaborations Prize for Writers and Photographers (with writer Lisa Morissett) 1997; New Media Fund Development Grant, Australia Council for the Arts 1999; Arts Tasmania artist grants 1997 and 2000. Walch has recently completed a three-year appointment to the Visual Arts and Crafts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts.


Walch has participated in 18+ group exhibitions including: Photographica Australis Asia Tour, Naarden Photo Festival Nederlands, ARCO Madrid, 2002 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art; Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney; SOFA, New York; ARTV, Australian Centre for the Moving Image.


He is represented in public and private collections including the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Research Interests

The central concern of the work I have produced over the last decade is a preoccupation with visual perception and so-called ‘objective’ systems of measurement. My work is about the inability of empirical systems to provide descriptions of reality that go beyond the logical and rational. I have pursued a process of investigation that focuses on visual descriptions of landscape as the subject – due to their accessibility as a common experiential space and because of their complex and culturally dependant definitions.


Current research into the theory of landscape representation has focused on redefining popular conceptions of Wilderness, and investigating the role of “Nature Porn” in the commodification of the natural environment in Tasmania.

Teaching

Martin is Lecturer and Course Coordinator for the Art and Natural Environment Field trip units, whilst also occasionally lecturing in Photography and Electronic Media and conducting Honors supervision.