Bree HADLEY

Associate Professor Bree Hadley is an internationally recognised authority in disability arts, culture, and media studies. Her research focuses on the aesthetic strategies artists adopt to try to change attitudes towards disabilities, and the way audiences respond to such artworks, particularly in participatory, live, and online public space performance. Hadley’s is the author of The Routledge Handbook of Disability Art, Culture, and Media(with Donna McDonald, Routledge, 2019), Theatre, Social Media & Meaning Making, (Palgrave, 2017), and Disability, Public Space Performance and Spectatorship: Unconscious Performers (Palgrave, 2014), along with dozens of journal articles, commentaries, critical reviews, and creative outputs.

In her most recent practice-led research, Hadley has been working with artists, curators, and academics to investigate current interest in ‘creative integration’ of sign language, captioning, and audio description into visual and performing arts works – as part of the aesthetic, not alongside the work. Hadley teaches contemporary, community, and applied theatre at Queensland University of Technology. Prior to joining QUT in 2007, Hadley worked as a dramaturg, director, and administrator for independent theatre companies (including, most recently, Theatre@Risk and Walking into Bars in Melbourne), and the Glen Eira City Council.