Director, Environmental Research Initiative for Art
Allan Giddy is a pioneer in, and one of Australia’s foremost proponents of, sustainable energy systems, electronic interconnectivity and interactivity embedded in the physical art object. He has worked with alternative energy systems in his sculpture and installation art for over twenty years. He has completed a BFA and an MFA in the faculty of Art & Design at University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, and is a past winner of the prestigious Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship (1993), which financed two years of research in the speciality field of interactive technologies in art, in both Germany and the UK.

His work has been shown at the Tate Modern, in Heidelberg and Rotterdam Town Halls, and numerous other venues internationally, from Canada, Ireland and Finland to Greece and Bulgaria. He has recently completed two significant public commissions in Sydney; meanwhile he has also been invited to create two temporary public installations in Kent (UK) and New Zealand.

Currently he leads the Environmental Research Initiative for Art (ERIA) specialising in the use of electrically motivated technologies and off grid power in public artwork. He has recently aquitted a major Australian Research Council linkage grant, secured by ERIA to advance the field.

Allan's interest in solar power began in 1994 with a work titled Hours Remaining in the Life of Allan Giddy, reviewed in Leonardo Magazine Vol 2/98, MIT Press. This interest led to his curating two exhibitions at UNSW Solarch Solar Research Centre (SOLARCH) in 1999 and 2002, and winning Sydney’s Sculpture by the Sea 'Green Power Prize' in 2002 with his work Minor Attractor. The inclusion of solar power and energy efficiency is still a key driver in his practice to this day. Recently Allan has curated Australia's first solar art exhibition 'Desert Equinox' in Broken Hill and 'La Lune' energy in art exhibition on the Northern Beaches of Sydney (May 2014).

His work and research involves a great deal of interdisciplinary collaboration. He works closely with colleagues in UNSW’s Key Centre for Photovoltaic Research and UNSW's Chemical Engineering Department, as well as with outside companies such as BP Solar, Pepperl + Fuchs, and the Sydney Olympic Park Authority. This crosspollination is vital to his practice.