Mia Boe 

Mia Boe is a Brisbane-based artist with Butchulla and Burmese heritage. The focus of her practice is the inheritance and disinheritance of both cultures. Maniac Scholar is part of a body of work that responds to writing of seminal Yugambeh poet, activist and artist Lionel Fogarty. The title of this work is pulled from Fogarty’s 2014 poem ‘Connoisseur’, where he refers to the ‘exactitude illiterate maniac scholars’ in a critique of institutional power and disregard of indigenous knowledge.

Executed as one of Boe’s signature long-limbed characters, the titular figure of the ‘maniac scholar’ is posed as an upholder of destructive Western academia, where intellectual tradition is used at the expense of others. Floating in a surreal, empty landscape, the scholar contemplates a page bearing the words ‘study’ and ‘project’ – oblivious to the occurrences of harm. Here, Boe visualises Fogarty’s literary imagery, staging a critique on pedagogy in settler-colonial nations.

Artist / Maker

Mia Boe (1997)

Creation Date

2024

Collection

University Art Collection

Subjects

Art and Design - Paintings

Materials used

oil on linen

Dimensions
(H x W x D)

152.5 x 81 cm

Credit line

The University of Melbourne Art Collection. Purchased through the Margaret Cooper Bequest Fund, 2024

Accession number

2024.010.001

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