Jaklyn Babington is the inaugural Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Practice at the National Gallery of Australia, a position she has held since late 2015. The Department’s brief is global, covering artistic practice in Australia and internationally post-2000. Collecting, exhibiting and commissioning activities are focussed on contemporary currents: artists working with technology, installation, moving image, performance and hybrid forms across a variety of conceptual and thematic areas. Jaklyn’s recent projects include Contemporary worlds: Indonesia (current); Jess Johnson & Simon Ward: Terminus (2018 and touring nationally throughout 2019–2020); Sarah Contos: Nikola Tesla sends Theda Bara to Mars (2018); Angelica Mesiti: Five video works (2018); Hyper Real (2017–18) and Ramesh Nithiyendran: Mud men (2017).
Previously, Jaklyn was the Curator of International Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery, where she was responsible for exhibitions such as Roy Lichtenstein: Pop remix (2013 and national tour); Space invaders: Australian street, stencil, posters, paste-ups, zines and stickers (2011–12 and national tour) and Robert Rauschenberg (2008). In 2008, Jaklyn was awarded the Sarah & William Holmes Scholarship to study the twentieth century and contemporary holdings of the Prints and Drawings Collection at the British Museum. She is a graduate of the Australian National University, Canberra.