Arnaud Morvan

Arnaud Morvan is an active researcher specializing in Indigenous art history, museum studies, and environmental humanities with over two decades of fieldwork experience in Australia and France. His work bridges academic research and curatorial practice, focusing on Aboriginal contemporary art's relationship to colonial history and multi-species ecological frameworks.

His research interests encompass Indigenous knowledge systems, museum collection ecology, and biopolitical intersections between Aboriginal cosmologies and viral studies. Morvan frequently connects ancient and contemporary art through projects like the major exhibition Mémoires Vives at Musée d'Aquitaine, while his recent environmental humanities work explores totemism, bat conservation, and zoonotic disease through the Ospapik program.

Publication trends reveal a shift from colonial art history (2018-2019 analyses of Rover Thomas and quai Branly collections) toward multi-species environmental anthropology (2021-2023 studies of chiropteran reservoirs and totemic kinship). His work consistently centers Aboriginal Australian perspectives while engaging global institutions including Melbourne Museum and National Museum of Australia.

Morvan's curatorial portfolio includes fifteen European exhibitions since 2007, notably Blak Beauty at La Chapelle de Clairefontaine and the French adaptation of Songlines: Tracking The Seven Sisters at Musée du quai Branly. His current Ospapik program rethinks museum ecology through hybrid material conservation, integrating Indigenous knowledge with Western museological practices.