The AASA 2025 conference marks a huge milestone for our Association. We will open the conference with a special session that celebrates the 20th anniversary of AASA: 

20 years of AASA: Past, Present and Futures for Animal Studies

The first AASA conference was held in Perth in 2005. Over the last 20 years the Association has grown to become one of the most dynamic animal studies associations globally, with a wide participatory member base, regular bulletins and publications and many exciting activities including public lectures, conferences, grants and prizes.

In this session, we will mark the 20th anniversary of AASA through a conversation with founding member Yvette Watt and past Chairperson Dinesh Wadiwel. This exchange will explore AASA’s history, consider the evolution of animal studies and the unique place of Australasian scholars, and consider the future for the field. 

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Yvette Watt’s artwork and academic research is heavily informed by her background as an activist, and reflects an interest in the relationship between how nonhuman animals are used and depicted in the visual arts and what this might have to say about how these animals are thought about and treated. Related to this is an interest in the role that art can play in engaging the viewer with social and/or political issues.

Yvette is a co-editor of and contributor to Considering Animals (Ashgate, 2011). Other publications include “Duck Lake: art meets activism in an anti-hide, anti-bloke, antidote to duck shooting.” In Animaladies, (2018), “Down on the Farm: Why do Artists Avoid Farm Animals as Subject Matter?”, in Meat Cultures, (2016); ‘Animal Factories: Exposing Sites of Capture’, in Captured: Animals Within Culture, (2014). She has also curated a number of exhibitions including OktoLab19 (2019), and Reconstructing the Animal (2011). Her work is held in numerous public and private collections including Parliament House, Canberra; Artbank; The Art Gallery of WA amongst others.

Yvette Watt left her role as Head of Painting at the UTAS School of Creative Arts & Media in 2022 and is now Principal and Creative Director of Archaica Schola, an art studio and school in Hobart.

Dinesh Wadiwel is an Associate Professor in human rights and socio-legal studies, with a background in social and political theory. Dinesh is an active critical animal studies scholar, and also has extensive research experience in disability rights. He is author of The War against Animals (Brill 2015) and Animals and Capital (Edinburgh University Press 2023).

Dinesh is also co-editor, with Matthew Chrulew, of Foucault and Animals (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Dinesh is also a disability rights researcher and was part of a team of researchers who have produced two reports for the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.