—  About

Melanie Wilmink is an arts researcher and curator who examines the spectatorial dynamics of media art environments.

She is an Assistant Professor in Global Media & Communication Arts at Woosong University (Daejeon, South Korea). She holds a PhD from York University (Canada) and received a 2022 Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship for research on “the art of the Korean smart city.” Past exhibitions include: Art Beyond Humanity: AI x human collaborations (Yonsei University, 2023), Re[new]All (Sensorium, 2021), and the Winter Warmer (Sidewalk Labs Toronto, 2019). Wilmink’s writing includes two co-edited anthologies—Sculpting Cinema (2018) and Landscapes of Moving Image (2021). She is an External Affiliate with Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts & Technology as well as the City Institute at York University (Canada).

Born in South Africa, but now a Canadian by way of several other countries, straddling borders is at the heart of Melanie’s practice. Working as an art curator and academic, she is interested in the ways that art and life intertwine to bleed out into the transitional spaces of the public realm. Influenced by her history as someone who makes physical objects and encounters, her academic work focuses on the ways that art exhibitions shapes spectatorial experience, and act as a way for viewers to think “with” and “through” artwork.

These ideas stem from the belief that art has incredible power to bring together diverse ideas and to stimulate individual reflection. Each viewer’s encounter with an artwork is a conversation with the artwork, artists and other viewers, and in that meeting-point it may be possible to dream new worlds together. This is the philosophy that she carries forward in her curating, research, writing, and teaching.