Vivien Johnson

For those of a similar name, see Vivian Johnson (disambiguation).

Vivien Joan Johnson FAHA (born 1949) is an Australian sociologist, writer on Indigenous Australian art, curator, teacher and former editor-in-chief of the Dictionary of Australian Artists Online. She is based in Sydney with frequent travel to Papunya where much of her work is centered. Johnson is considered to be a pioneer in interdisciplinary research as she combines anthropological, sociological, philosophical and art historical perspectives. She has also done extensive work on Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights.

Achievements

Johnson was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1998.

Johnson curated the 2003–2005 Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri national touring retrospective and the 2007–2008 National Museum of Australia’s Papunya Painting: out of the desert which toured to Sydney and Beijing.

In 2005 she was made Professor of New Media Narrative and Theory at the University of New South Wales. As of 2021 she is Adjunct Art and Design Professor.

In 2020 Johnson was made a National Library of Australia fellow looking at Writing Papunya: The Making of an Illustrated Vernacular Literature 1974-1991

She was a longtime friend of artist Kumantje Jagamara, and spoke at his funeral in March 2021.

Select publications

Johnson is notable for the publication of several key reference works in the field of contemporary Indigenous Australian art, including

• The art of Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1994)
• Western Desert Artists: A Biographical Dictionary (1995)
• Lives of the Papunya Tula Artists (2008)
• Once Upon a Time in Papunya (2010)
• Streets of Papunya : the re-invention of Papunya painting (2015)

She has also published over 100 articles in both art and academic journals.