Emerging from the discipline of painting, Lisa Radford's practice traverses writing, performance, sculpture and installation. In order to explore the shared socio-political space between images, place and people, Radford works with others as a way of examining what is both spoken and beyond speech. With Sam George, working together since 2008, they use conversation and oral histories to produce works that refer to documentary processes, shared narratives and coded language. The evolving project Concrete Archives, documents the shared experiences of 2 women: one Aboriginal, Yhonnie Scarce; the other non-Aboriginal, Radford and involves fieldwork to local and international sites of nuclear colonisation, genocide and memorialisation resulting in the production, to date of an editorial project with Art + Australia online and a major curatorial project debuting at ACE Open (ADL) which travelled to the VCA (MEL) — this digital, oral and exhibition "archive" includes historical and contemporary works and asks how we can address the cultural amnesia which obfuscates if not renders invisible the the Genocide of Aboriginal people in Australia since colonisation in order to address the impact this has had on our shared experiences, conflicts and representations of citizenship.
Currently working in the Honours and Painting departments at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, she shares thoughts publicly and intermittently in the The Saturday Paper.
The Neigh written to accompany Yundi Wang’s falling back to.
Lady Idleness written to accompany Christina May Carey’s Hypnagogia
Concrete Archives (The image is not nothing) with an ongoing project with Yhonnie Scarce exploring nuclear colonisation, memorialisation and genocide begun in 2018 with visits to Wounded Knee, Chernobyl, Tbilisi, Yerevan, Okuma and Hiroshima. Sitting in context with Brooke Andrew’s RR Memorial but extending the conversation beyond the borders of Australia, Scarce and Radford look to both creating, referencing and intervening in archives that examine a relationship to the physicality of loss experienced in Brutalist and Soviet Architecture, Genocide Museums and Memorials.
Some ongoing writings with and about art for The Saturday Paper.
Indoor Yachting curated by Rebecca Suares-Jury including Caitlin Aloisio-Shearer, James Ashley, Darcey Bella Arnold, Aretha Brown, Shanae Davies, Grace Culley, Matlok Griffiths, Evangela Lines-Morison, Travis MacDonald, Thomas Minchinton Kimpton, Madeleine Minack, Eleanor Newbound, Lisa Radford, Miream Salameh and Rebecca Suares-Jury. With written contributions from Greta Wallace Crabbe in collaboration with Prof Chris Wallace Crabbe and another written piece by Isabelle Carney, 2020.
Je suis broccoli published by Diane Inc.as document for the exhibition for you broccoli at Sutton Gallery in 2019.
A letter to Kym for A Wharfie’s Story- play, protest, consequence: Kym Maxwell and the Collingwood College Theatre Troupe, published in 2019.
An essay called ‘Everything that will happen will happen today’ for the monograph Angela Brennan: 19 Desires and One Belief, published by 3-ply and launched in March 2019.
An image of a talk in 2016 about writing for the contribution to book called Writing + Concepts: Volume 1 edited by Jan van Schaik and published by Art & Australia in 2018.
Aesthetic nonsense makes commonsense, thanks X is collection of essays co-published by Surpllus and West Space in 2017. It includes contributions from Geoff Lowe & Jacqueline Riva (A Constructed World), Fiona Macdonald and Jarrod Rawlins and was designed and edited by Brad Haylock, Patrice Sharkey and with editorial assistance by Robert Shumoail-Albazi.
Dan Rule’s words on Approx Geez Lousie at Sutton Project Space, 2015
Maria Kozic Bootleg Catalogue for the exhibition Maria curated with Raafat Ishak at Incidents above a bar including work by Kim Donaldson, Ash Kilmartin, Jack Hooper-Bell, Ry Haskings, Nellie Reinhardt, Aleks Danko, Vivienne Shark-Lewitt and Sandra Bridie.
Dear Masato, all at once: a public talk written as a letter and then designed as a text by Simon McGlinn Dear Masato, all at once, at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, 7 March to 5 April, 2014.
Dear Masato, all at once catalogue | designed by Narelle Desmond: a project with Blair Trethowan, Geoff Newton, Art Workers’ Coalition, Jon Campbell, Howard Arkley, Amanda Marburg, Linda Marrinon, Ry Haskings, Andree Korpys and Markus Löffler, Sharon Goodwin, Ronnie Van Hout, Sam George, Francis Alÿs, Michelle Ussher, Jenny Watson, Matthew Greaves, Matthias Wermke & Mischa Leinkauf, Colleen Ahern, Tony Garifalakis, Lane Cormick, Guy Benfield, Liang Luscombe, Juan Davila, Nicholas Mangan, Guillermo Faivovich and Nicolás Goldberg, James Lynch, Mathew Jones, Nikos Pantazopoulos, John Meade, DAMP, Ron Robertson-Swann, Matthew Griffin, A Constructed World, Kati Rule. Texts by Kate Daw, Nic Tammens, Jarrod Rawlins and Patrice Sharkey.
c. At Sea Before Dinner catalogue: an exhibition with Kati Rule and texts by Rosemary Forde and Nikos Pantazopoulos, 2013
Geoff Newton: Fan Tribute History Parallel Bootleg Paintings: an essay on Geoff Newton's exhibition Big Time at TCB artinc. in August 2012 discussing the paintings via the site and recent local histories. Published in Discipline No.3 edited by Helen Hughes and Nicholas Croggon
Un Magazine 6.1 : artdesign: an edited issue of UN Magazine with editorial introduction co-authored with designer Brad Haylock titled A letter from the editor, who is an artist, to the designer, who is also an artist' 2012
Un Magazine 6.2 : White Collar, Chip and a Pirates Parrot: the second issue of UN Magazine with an editorial introduction co-authored with the sub-editor Liang Luscombe titled 'Are we in a cone of silence?: A letter between two artists, who are editors (for now)' 2012
Jon Campbell: a monograph on Jon Campbell co-authored with Jarrod Rawlins in 2010
Documentation of the group exhibition 40 degrees curated by Alexi Glass at Gertrude Contemporary in 2007.
Hi God People: a book of Melbourne music flyers and writings by punters and players. Designed by WHITE STUDIO and published in 2007
or either silver lining TCB artinc. catalogue: an exhibition of video works by Greatest Hits | DAMP | Ronnie van Hout | Andrew Liversidge that use play and performance, boredom and repetition to explore boundaries of control, production, value and activity accompanied by a re-print of Justin Clemens essay On Boredom which was first presented as a lecture which was part of a series of peresentations ‘From Tripping to Transcendence: How do we get our kicks?’ the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts at Storey Hall, RMIT, Melbourne in 2001. These works in the exhibition were complimented by two screenings of Bruce Nauman’s Bouncing two balls between the floor and ceiling with changing rhythm (1967-68), presented Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.