{"id":31512,"date":"2026-07-02T10:09:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/?p=31512"},"modified":"2026-07-02T10:10:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:10:04","slug":"researcher-connect-professor-kit-messham-muir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/researcher-connect-professor-kit-messham-muir\/","title":{"rendered":"Researcher Connect: Professor Kit Messham-Muir"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Meet Professor Kit Messham-Muir from the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry \u2013 researcher, author and curator. His work explores how artists respond to war and political violence, most recently through the \u2018<em>Art of Peace<\/em>\u2019 exhibition, an outcome of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage project in partnership with the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) and the National Trust of NSW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Sundays, he spends time with his wife, friend and guitar, swapping research for rhythm. Kit was recently reunited with his very first guitar in exchange for a copy of his book!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Researcher Connect: Professor Kit Messham-Muir\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hVVzQu5jN-4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Q&amp;A with Kit  <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Describe your research in 3 words<br><\/strong>Art.\u00a0 War.\u00a0 Understanding.\u00a0<br><br><strong>Tell us briefly about your field of research?<\/strong><br>I study how artists respond to war and political violence, not to sentimentalise experience or to fetishise trauma, but to understand how contemporary art can reveal, complicate and even resist the forces that drive conflict.\u00a0 My work combines writing, curating and field research in conflict and post-conflict societies, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, and Timor-Leste.\u00a0 My next project is on the current war in Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Research highlight<\/strong><br>A major highlight was the \u2018<em>Art of Peace: Art After War<\/em>\u2019 exhibition, which I co-curated at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.\u00a0 It bought together artists from Bosnia, Rwanda and Timor-Leste whose work confronts the aftermath of war, with incredible sensitivity, intelligence and emotional precision.\u00a0 But the real highlight was working with those artists; amazing people, with incredible stories, who often share their most vulnerable experiences with researchers like me, and the larger audience.\u00a0 That exhibition really spoke from the hearts of these artists.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Art-of-Peace-1024x500.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31514\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Kit Messham-Muir (left end), Timor-Leste specialist Naldo Rei, and Art of Peace exhibiting artists Bernardino Soares, Inu Bere and Maria Madeira from Timor-Leste, Cedric Mizero from Rwanda, Aida \u0160ehovi\u0107 from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and co-curator, Bahar Sayed, at the opening of <em>Art of Peace: Art After War<\/em>, 31 January 2025. Photo: Loretta Tolnai.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If you could sit in with any Faculty for a day, which would you pick?<\/strong><br>I think it would be the Curtin Law School, particularly dealing with international law.\u00a0 I\u2019m fascinated by the ways in which philosophical ideas around the group versus the individual underpin things like Raphel Lemkin\u2019s notion of \u2018genocide\u2019 versus Hersch Lauterpacht\u2019s idea of \u2018crimes against humanity\u2019.\u00a0 I think those ideas\u2014group identity versus individualism\u2014run underneath many of the tensions, domestically and geopolitically, that vex the world at the moment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What are your passions\/hobbies outside of work?<\/strong><br>Like many Gen-X men in western culture, I play the guitar.\u00a0 And every Sunday afternoon I play in a band with my wife Loretta on keyboards and vocals, and our friend Sue on drums.\u00a0 And when the artists came to Perth for the Art of Peace exhibition, many of them are also musicians, so we had a great international jam evening on our balcony.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have a guitar collection that has become a diary of my life, which includes the first guitar, given to me by my parents in 1984.\u00a0 I sold it to someone when I left Wales back in 1989 to come to live in Australia.\u00a0 35 years later, that same guy contacted me to say he still had the guitar, he no longer plays it, and asked if I wanted it back\u2014in exchange for a copy of my book <em>The Trump Effect<\/em>.\u00a0 I was very flattered and so happy to be reunited with my very first guitar.\u00a0 It now hangs on my wall at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/KMM-2-2-600x500.jpg\" alt=\"Loretta, Sue and Kit, practising in the studio on a Sunday afternoon.\" class=\"wp-image-31519\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Loretta, Sue and Kit, practising in the studio on a Sunday afternoon.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s a fun fact about you that your colleagues would probably not know?<\/strong><br>Some might know this, but I\u2019m originally from Wrexham in North Wales, a town (now a city) that became famous about five years ago when Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac bought the town\u2019s football club.\u00a0 It is the topic of the documentary <em>Welcome to Wrexham<\/em> (in fact, Andrew, the guy who returned my first guitar to me, is in one of the early episodes).\u00a0 I always try to watch a Wrexham AFC match when I\u2019m back in Wales, and was at the match when the team first got promoted into the English Football League.\u00a0 I\u2019m not into sport at all, but I make an exception for Wrexham.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/KMM-1200x500.jpg\" alt=\"Kit with his oldest friend from Wales, the late Tim Hayman, at Wrexham AFC\u2019s 3-1 victory over Boreham Wood at the Cae Ras, Wrexham, April 2023.\" class=\"wp-image-31517\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Kit with his oldest friend from Wales, the late Tim Hayman, at Wrexham AFC\u2019s 3-1 victory over Boreham Wood at the Cae Ras, Wrexham, April 2023.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the most valuable things you\u2019ve learnt in your career so far?<\/strong><br>There\u2019s a phrase in Welsh at the bottom of my Curtin email signature: Dim Heb Ydrech.\u00a0 It was the motto of my high school in Gwersyllt, Ysgol Bryn Alyn, and it means \u201cnothing without effort\u201d.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how much I learnt in high school stuck with me, but that one phrase has stuck with me throughout my career.\u00a0 Everything takes much more effort than you imagine it will.\u00a0 In any project, it\u2019s never nothing.\u00a0 There\u2019s always something.\u00a0 Something is complicated, something goes wrong, Covid-19 happens in the middle of one of your projects.\u00a0 But it\u2019s also a valuable reminder that when you continue to push onwards, great things can happen.\u00a0 Never give up; nothing without effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What\u2019s a piece of advice you would give to your fellow colleagues, and students alike?<br><\/strong>Be curious\u2014never be afraid to admit you don\u2019t know and that you\u2019re learning.\u00a0 Be generous\u2014give people the opportunity to show how amazing they can be.\u00a0 And be ridiculous\u2014the stupidest ideas are often the most brilliant ideas that just need a bit of work, because, y\u2019know, dim heb ymdrech.\u00a0<br><br><a href=\"https:\/\/staffportal.curtin.edu.au\/staff\/profile\/view\/kit-messham-muir-d2b4d22d\/\">Connect with Kit<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This piece was featured in\u202f<a href=\"https:\/\/research.curtin.edu.au\/impact-focus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Impact Focus<\/em><\/a>\u202f\u2013 a quarterly newsletter bringing you the latest in Curtin research.\u202f<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/78fa5356695c\/signup-to-the-roc-enewsletter\">Sign up here\u202fto get it delivered straight to your inbox!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meet Professor Kit Messham-Muir from the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry \u2013 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":31518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":4,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1147,211],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-31512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-humanities","tag-research"],"acf":{"post_components":false,"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Professor-Kit-Messham-Muir-1580x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-09 12:48:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31512"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=31512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}