Virginia Fraser (artist)
Virginia Fraser (28 December 1947 – 26 January 2021) was an Australian artist, writer, curator and advocate for women artists. Career. Fraser was born in 1947. She completed a Bachelor of Arts (Media Arts) at Phillip Institute of Technology and a Master of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts. A journalist and writer, in the 1980s she began making Super 8 films. She has worked in photography, video and installation art since the 1990s in collaboration with her creative and life partner, Destiny Deacon. She was a member of the City of Melbourne's Acquisitions  Panel for many years and encouraged their purchase of works by Indigenous artists as well as assisting with their visual arts programs. Curator Natalie King worked with Fraser when compiling Deacon's archive for "Walk & don't look blak", an exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in 2004. More recently, Fraser worked with the National Gallery of Victoria, preparing for Deacon's retrospective "DESTINY." In September 2020 she and Deacon were invited by the School of Art and Design at the Australian National University as inaugural visiting artists/scholars in ANU's First Nations' First Person  workshop and lecture program. Fraser died in Melbourne on 26 January 2021. Announcing the news of her death, the National Gallery of Australia wrote: "we remember Virginia as one of the most rigorous and sustained advocates for women’s contributions to the cultural life of this country". Collections. Examples of photography work, digitally remastered Super 8 films and videos created jointly with Destiny Deacon are held in the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and Queensland Gallery of Modern Art.