Staff Scholarship: Dr Kristian Häggblom & Stephanie Rose Wood
Profile:
Dr Kristian Häggblom
Higher Education Course Director
Master of Arts Photography Convener
Speculative Horizons v1 & v1.5
Co-Initiator
Co-Curator
Co-Writer
Stephanie Rose Wood
Bachelor of Photography and Digital Imaging Course Convener
Speculative Horizons v1.5
Co-Curator
Co-Writer
Domain: Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Saad Alsharrah at Speculative Horizons opening. Image: Maddie Sherburn. 
Australian Ambassador to Kuwait Melissa Kelly at Speculative Horizons opening. Image: Maddie Sherburn.
Project #3: Speculative Horizons v1 and v1.5
In collaboration with a recent Master of Arts Photography graduate, Saad Alsharrah, Kristian initiated and staged an exhibition and symposium in Kuwait in 2023 at Contemporary Art Platform. The project focused on a collaboration between Australia and Kuwait to foster future relations and visual culture and education events and was supported by the Australian Embassy, Kuwait, and Polestar the electric car company, along with other industry sponsors. The exhibition featured 18 photographers from Kuwait and Australia and the associated symposium focused on experimental long-form Australian projects with guest lectures by Jesse Marlow and Lee Grant. The project also included workshops including a street photography masterclass with Jesse Marlow. The events were outlined in an Exhibition Reader which is available as a PDF download online from the dedicated website.
Contemporary Art Platform hosted the second iteration of Speculative Horizons in early 2024. Steph and Kristian worked with Saad Alsharrah to co-curate the Evasive Sanctuaries exhibition and develop a symposium on the future of photography education. This included an Education Kit that included curatorial and teaching resources for delivering photography workshops. The Education Kits were presented and outlined to educators and audiences at the symposium and during gallery tours. The Reader is also available as a PDF download online from the dedicated website. The exhibition included four projects made about Japan that signposted the projects 2025 activities in Japan.
Photography Studies College was the official Education Partner.
About:
Speculative Horizons is a cross-cultural project initiated by artists, curators and educators that use lens-based mediums and research as the primary methods to facilitate and establish projects and connect with the world through and with photography. Working with a collaborative approach that embraces experiences across Australia, Kuwait, Japan and the
United Kingdom we instigate, facilitate and manage exhibitions, symposia and education projects.
Speculative Horizons has been developed by Dr Kristian Häggblom (Australia) and Dr Saad Alsharrah (Kuwait), and is supported by the Australian Embassy in Kuwait and the Japanese Embassy in Kuwait.
The Evasive Sanctuaries exhibition was staged as part of Speculative Horizons v1.5 program. The exhibition includes photographic work that explores physical and psychological spaces that have complex and multilayered significance, that are both remembered and imagined.
Installation view of Evasive Sanctuaries at Contemporary Art Platform. Image: Stephanie Rose Wood
Installation view of Evasive Sanctuaries at Contemporary Art Platform. Image: Stephanie Rose Wood
The exhibition expands further on the themes surveyed through Speculative Horizon’s initial events: ‘Land’ and ‘People’ and introduces the ‘Sea’. The four photographic projects presented investigate how terraforming is enacted at vast and specific places: planetary exploration, the deep sea, a city after war and the demise of a dwelling. Each of these narratives is closely associated with Japan and told through the documented personal experiences of each visual storyteller.
The photographs exhibited are produced through a variety of digital and analogue photographic techniques that expand and experiment with the traditions of documentary photography. The projects are intentional in their refusal to provide answers, instead posing questions that can be further explored by the viewer through speculative contemplation and further assisted through educational material/programs.
More details:
Teaching Strategies:
Initiating, facilitating and managing this project enabled both Steph and Kristian to gain insight into the creative industries and visual arts education in Kuwait, and more broadly the Middle East. Important knowledge was gained regarding the production of the teaching resource that will assist with both curriculum and extracurricular activities that includes exhibition organisation, alternative funding, negotiating with embassies, the construction of education kits and contemporary curatorial practice. These are crucial skills that will be implemented in the third year subject Introduction to Curating and Exhibiting, in which the third year students work towards their graduate exhibition that highlights their achievements. In addition to this, Master of Arts Photography students who showcase their project outcomes in a public realm have been presented with the Exhibition Readers as examples of how to implement an education program within a curatorial project.
Biography:
Dr. Kristian Häggblom’s interests are inspired by transdisciplinary art practices and new modes of documentary making. When he first moved to Japan in 1999 he co- founded/curated RoomSpace gallery in Shinjuku, Tokyo. While studying Honours in Tasmania in 2003, he received an Exhibition Development Grant from CAST, to curate the cross-cultural Japanese Australian exhibition Paper Bridges which was part of Ten days on the Island festival in 2005. Häggblom has curated several large-scale exhibitions for Mildura Palimpsest Biennale that have included the work of Japanese artist group Chim↑Pom and a recent survey of contemporary Japanese photography at the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne.
Stephanie Rose Wood is a British collaborative, community-centred storyteller (and question asker). Her work enables narrative expression through documentary photography, education, and curation. Her creative practice is research-driven and explores the complex interconnections between community, ritual, and the psychology of belief. Wood’s curatorial interests are based on the relationship between photography and text and adapting modes of storytelling across different educational platforms and audiences.