John Reid, AIDIA (Graphic Design) 1972, BA (ANU) 1973, MFA (UNSW) 1995, is an Emeritus Fellow of The Australian National University (ANU). He is a practising visual artist working in photography, collage and performance art about the environment, human rights and cultural identity. He is also a visual art pedagogic researcher, a nationally awarded educator, nationally and internationally awarded graphic designer and project manager with overseas experience.

John Reid was an ANU Creative Arts Fellow from 1977-79 and was a staff member at ANU School of Art from 1978–2013. During this period, he integrated his visual art practice into his role as a tertiary visual arts researcher, educator, curator and graphic designer. He developed the nationally awarded1 ANU School of Art Field Study Program in 1996 convening 46 semester programs and field-coordinating 30 programs in remote, rural and suburban environments across all eastern Australian States2. He established the ANU School of Art Environment Studio in 2000. John Reid was a Chief Investigator of the Engaging Visions Research Project3 (2007–10) financed by the Australian Research Council in which the experiences of artists participating in Field Study Programs, and the community they encountered, were evaluated to provide a better understanding of how to improve the delivery of the Program - specifically to river catchment communities in Australia’s Murray Darling Basin4. A significantly refined Field Study Program procedure has been the result and has been adapted for secondary and tertiary art education programs in Australia and internationally5. The Field Study Program procedure has also been applied in Australian community initiatives outside the educational sector6.

      John Reid’s fine art practice is typified by several long term projects. Collage of Australian Banknotes 1982- addresses the issue of political disappearances by the progressive collage of Australian banknotes – that Reid has earned and that the cutting and pasting of which is permitted by a special dispensation from the Australian Treasury – to depict a contemporary global narrative informed by Reid’s membership of Amnesty International7. The Fishman of SE Australia, a folio of large format photographs, an oral/visual presentation in public lecture format, and a collection of mass media articles, has been compiled and developed over three decades. It draws on the evocative power of the Australian landscape and the human dramas that have unfolded in it since colonial occupation8. Walking the Solar System is a continuing, internationally distributed performative artwork that was initiated in 2001. It references global warming9. As art projects, John Reid manages the National Environment Bank, that trades riverbank notes (which he designs and prints) for Australian currency; and the National Heritage Trust which similarly trades in share certificates. Funds raised from the sale of banknotes and share certificates are donated to community river catchment environmental projects and to art projects that document cultural heritage10.

John Reid has exhibited nationally and in Hong Kong (1988), Thailand (1994), Japan (1998, 2017), Poland (1998), United States (2011, 2014), Peru (2015) and New Zealand (2016) and undertaken art residencies at the Hong Kong University, Hong Kong [1988], University of New Mexico, USA [2015], Southern Cross University, Australia [2017-19]; and at Koumi Machi Kougen Museum of Art, Japan [2017]. His artwork is held privately and in the collections of the University of Canberra; The Australian National University; Chang Mai University, Thailand; the Centre for Art + Environment, Nevada Museum of Art; Canberra Museum and Gallery; and Health Services, ACT Government.

John Reid is a nationally and internationally awarded graphic designer for book design and typeface design respectively11. As a writer he has prescribed, in the form of a 2011 commission for the Queensland Government, an approach to the World Heritage List Selection: Criterion VII – that addresses superlative natural phenomena, areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance - for proposed World Heritage listing of Cape York Peninsula12. In 2015, he wrote book chapters about change in the visual arts and, jointly, about the reciprocal relationship that develops between artists and scientists who share field research experiences13.

John Reid has had extensive experience in engaging and collaborating with electronic and printed mass media journalists in relation to his visual art research and professional practice14.

In 2015-16, John Reid undertook a consultancy for the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to develop an art strategy for the creative involvement of fine artists in the aesthetic visualisation of the determinants of health and wellbeing in urban environments. Three publications were produced, designed and published. THRIVE GLOBAL, the final and main published outcome of the commission, was released, in several languages, for UN Habitat III, Quito, Ecuador, October 201615.

From 2016-22, John Reid was contracted by the University of Canberra as a visual art mentor on an art recovery program for the Australian Defence Force. In response to the 2019-20 Australian bushfires, he established FieldScreen International, an online facility to deliver mentoring to artist affected by the natural disaster. OUTPUT Art after Fire, a project funded by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Cultural Diplomacy Grant Program, has enabled FieldScreen International and SE Arts, a NSW arts organization, to work online during 2020-21 with artists who have been affected by recent fires in Australia and the United States of America.

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1 2003: Australian Science Festival Ltd award for ‘inspiring artwork informed by science’. 2006: Carrick Citation for Outstanding Contribution to University Teaching – For an innovative field research program that engages student artists with landscape, communities and environmental agencies to inspire creative works for environmental strategies. 2014: Planning Institute of Australia recognised the work of the 2014 SECA Field Study (which Reid convened and field coordinated) with a national award for ‘Cutting Edge Research and Teaching’ as an innovative component of, and in conjunction with, the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility South East Coast Adaptation Research Project.

2 See: Engaging Visions: Engaging Artists with the Community about the Environment (engagingvisions.com.au pp 7) for Field Study Programs 1996-2009. Subsequent programs: The Contested Landscapes of Western Sydney, 2010-13; The Eden Project, 2011; Water Water, 2012; SE Coast Adaptation Field Study, 2013; Crace Field Study, 2014.

3 The Engaging Visions Research Project is an initiative of the Australian National University and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and was financially supported by the Australian Research Council.

4 See: Jointly authored journal paper by Carolyn Young, John Reid, Bart Meehan, Taking Action: Researching an innovative pedagogy for an aesthetic visual approach to environmental issues, in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343515000664

5 Secondary: Australia - ACT Secondary Colleges, ACT; Brewongle Environmental Education Centre, NSW. International – Singapore Secondary College

Tertiary: Australia - ANU School of Art, ACT. University of Southern Queensland, Qld; Griffith University, Qld; Charles Sturt University, NSW; University of South Australia, SA. International – Duneden Polytechnic, New Zealand; Pontificia Universitat Catholica del Peru, Peru. University of New Mexico, USA; University Sans Malaysia, Malaysia.

6 eg: Portrait of a Nation. ACT Centenary Celebrations, 2013. Two Fires Festival, Braidwood, 2011. 4 Winds, Bermagui, Bermagui Project, 2017

7 See: https://www.facebook.com/Untitled-Collage-of-Australian-Banknotes-1982-John-Reid-1595400247348107/

Also see: https://issuu.com/humanrightsasia/docs/torture_v2_n2_backup_high Page 141(139)

8 See: https://www.facebook.com/Fishman-of-SE-Australia-John-Reid-920925194607334/

9 See: https://www.facebook.com/Walking-The-Solar-System-John-Reid-1397271160567869/

https://www.facebook.com/solarwalksCOP21/?pnref=story

10 See: https://www.facebook.com/National-Heritage-Trust-John-Reid-858721907526035/?pnref=story

11 Gundagai Album. Early Photographs of an Australian Country Town. Edited with an introduction by Peter Quartermaine. National Library of Australia. Canberra. 1976. Design: John Reid. Book Council of Australia. Book Design Award. / PROCESS © John Reid. Letraset Letragraphica. London. International Display Typeface Competition winner. 1972.

12 Reid, J, 2011 Cape York Peninsula World Heritage Program Criterion (VII): The Aesthetic Point of View. ANU Enterprise, Canberra, Australia.

13 Change! Combining Analytic Approaches with Street Wisdom. Edited by Gabriele Bammer http://press.anu.edu.au/titles/change/

Health of People, Places and Planet. Reflections based on Tony McMichael’s four decades of contribution to epidemiological understanding. Edited by Colin D. Butler, Jane Dixon and Anthony G. Capon. http://press.anu.edu.au?p=320071

14 ABC TV (eg: National News, 1982; 7.30 Report, 1993); ABC Regional Radio (1992-2015) and Radio National (eg: Late Night Live, 1992. Artworks, produced by Alexander de Blass, 2008) etc.

15 See https://icma.org/documents/thrive-global-launch-announcement