Professor Marie Sierra is the incoming Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne, starting in January 2021. She was formerly the Deputy Dean at UNSW Sydney, Faculty of Art and Design. Her practice as an artist and as an arts writer draws on her research on nature as a social construct. Examining issues around the consumption of both goods and natural resources, she has held numerous solo and group exhibitions within Australia and overseas. She has won awards for her artwork, and has had five Australia Council Grants, three Australian Research Council Grants, and an Australian Office of Learning and Teaching grant that examined ethical art practice.
The artist acknowledges the Boonwurrung/Bunurong and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation as the traditional custodians of the land on which she lives and works, and pays her respects to Elders past and present. She acknowledges First Nations connection to creative practice on these lands for more than 60,000 years, lands which were never ceded.