Dr. Irene Barberis is an artist and Founding Director of Metasenta Pty. Ltd, an international arts research 'satellite' which functions between Universities, arts organizations and artists. Metasenta has included  support by a number of Universities, the primary being RMIT University in Melbourne, and the University of the Arts London. She has initiated many international arts projects in collaboration with artists and institutions in the UK, USA, the Middle East and the Far East.

 

Each of the Metasenta projects consists of exhibitions, publications and filmed documentaries. A number of the projects include : 'The Centres Project', London,  'The Chicago Project - Fold Out Futures', Chicago, 'Across the Gulf', Bahrain, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, 'Artists in Leadership / The Montana Group', Lucerne, and 'Moving Cultures, China/Tibet'. Each project brings together multiple Universities, with projects having all outcomes possible within the year.

 

Born in London, Irene holds a PhD from Victoria University, Melbourne, in philosophy and visual art – Abstract and Figurative Elements of the Apocalypse and its Representations (2000); and Master of Fine Arts – The Spiritual  and the Mundane (1994) from the Victorian College of the Arts.

 

She has initiated and directed two University galleries and helped in the setting up of an independent Arts School. Apart from Directing Metasenta, she is currently working in the RMIT School of Art as a Senior Lecturer and as a Chief Investigator in the International Project 'The Tapestry of Light: Intersections in Lux, Lumen and Illumination'.

 

As a painter, installation and new media artist, she has held over fifty solo exhibitions in Australia and abroad, and participated in over eighty group exhibitions, and continues to be involved in Global Public Art Commissions and Projects.

 

She has curated major international Museum and University exhibitions, including multiple curatorial projects for Gallery Langford120 where she is a Co Director with fellow Artist, Dr Wilma Tabacco. She runs Metasenta Publications, an arm of Metasenta Pty.Ltd. which works with international artists and arts writers.

In 2014, she was one of the instrumental group in establishing the new Foundation for Australian Arts Internationally -  The Metasenta Foundation [TMF].