Professor Sandy O’Sullivan is a Wiradjuri transgender/non-binary person working in the Centre for Global Indigenous Futures at Macquarie University, where they are a 2020-2024 ARC Future Fellow with a project titled Saving Lives: Mapping the influence of Indigenous LGBTIQ+ creative artists. The project explores the unique contribution of queer artists to understand how modelling complex identities contributes to the wellbeing of all First Nations’ peoples.
Since 1991 they have taught and researched across gender and sexuality, museums, the body, performance, design and First Nations’ identity. Sandy was the inaugural director of the Centre for Collaborative First Nations’ Research at Batchelor Institute. They completed an internationally focused ARC program examining the representation and engagement of First Nations’ Peoples across 470 museums and Keeping Places, and in 2020 they completed an ARC Linkage mapping creative practice across the Barkly Region of the Northern Territory (Creative Barkly). Sandy works across both industry and the academy, and recently completed a national review of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance and theatre makers for the Australia Council for the Arts.
In addition to their academic work, Sandy has been a musician, performer and sound artist since 1982 holding national and international arts residencies.
