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Staff Profile

Dr Antonio Gonzalez

Reader in Heritage

  • Email: antonio.gonzalez@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: 2.89
    Media, Culture, Heritage
    Armstrong Building,
    Newcastle University,
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
Background

Background

I was born in Puebla (Mexico) where I studied in a German school for 15 years before taking some time off and then studying a BA in Communication Sciences and a certificate in Literature at the University of the Americas-Puebla, Mexico. After working in hospitality and retail, I worked as an editor for a film production company. I also contributed to the making of documentaries about urban cultures in Mexico City, the Afro-Mexican population of Tierra Caliente in the state of Guerrero, Mexico, the production of sugar cane in southern Mexico and a video of a kosher abattoir in Mexico. I also briefly held a position as a film critic for a local newspaper in Puebla. In 2007, I travelled to Melbourne, Australia, where I studied a Master of Arts in Cinema Management at the University of Melbourne. Through my experience as editor, I also worked at the National Gallery of Victoria - the largest gallery in Australia - as a multimedia designer. This experience led me to start a PhD in Art History at the University of Melbourne on the destruction of Indigenous rock art in Western Australia. I completed my PhD thanks to a generous scholarship offered by the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology and the University of Melbourne. After finishing my PhD, I worked as research assistant in two projects at the University of Melbourne, one on Digital Humanities and the other on the deaccession of artworks in museums. I also worked as a freelance translator and interpreter, as well as a curator of art and heritage exhibitions in Melbourne. In 2015, I was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Birmingham and later I undertook postdoctoral work at Deakin University, in Australia. In 2018 and 2019 I was a British Academy Visiting Fellow working with members of Forensic Architecture in a series of projects on heritage destruction. In 2020, I was awarded a fellowship as an Associate Scholar at the Italian Academy (Columbia University). After teaching at the University of Melbourne in 2022 and 2023, I joined Newcastle University in 2023.


Qualifications

PhD (Art History, Archaeology and Heritage Studies), University of Melbourne, 2009-14

MA (Cinema Management), University of Melbourne, 2007-8.

BA (Honours) Communication Sciences, University of the Americas-Puebla, 2000-05.


Google Scholar profile

Research

Research Interests

My research is about the destruction of heritage and iconoclasm (the destruction of images for political and religious reasons).

I am interested in the intersection between art, heritage and media and how can we understand them in terms of questions of power, identity and aesthetics. I have published widely on heritage destruction and iconoclasm in Australia, Iraq, Syria, Myanmar, Mexico, videogames and Google. By analysing and interpreting heritage destruction, I firmly believe that we can uncover how heritage is really managed on the ground as opposed to what official discourses affirm. In doing so, I am interested in using heritage destruction as an analytical tool that can assist in the management of cultural heritage. I am also interested in the connection between contemporary art and heritage destruction whereby contemporary artists are using the discourse of heritage destruction to create contemporary works of art.


Research projects

  • I was part of a research project funded by the Australian Department of Defence that measured the destruction of heritage in Iraq and Syria (2015-2018) at Deakin University, Australia.
  • As a British Academy Visiting Fellow, I contributed to the exhibition "Maps of Defiance" (UK entry to the 2018 London Design Biennale) curated by the V&A and produced by Forensic Architecture (Goldsmiths University). The exhibition showed the extent of the destruction of Yezidi heritage perpetrated by the so-called Islamic State.
  • Likewise, I was also part of the research team that investigated the destruction of the landscape in Vaca Muerta, Argentina, by gas companies, carried out by Forensic Architecture.


Esteem Indicators

  • I am a co-editor of the first handbook of heritage destruction published by Routledge in 2024.
  • I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries


Invitations as a speaker (*funded invitations):


2024

*September. The recording of destruction: the icon of iconoclasm. Destruction by Design: The Legacies of Damage to Cultural Heritage, V&A Dundee, Scotland. Travel and accommodation costs funded.

 

*February. The problem of heritage or the protection that cannot be afforded? Isa Lohmann-Siems Stiftung 2023/24, Paradoxien des Schützens, Warburg-Haus, Hamburg. Travel and accommodation costs funded.

 

2020

*December. Between heritage and destruction: the case of Murujuga petroglyphs (Western Australia). Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Cultural Heritage Center.

 

*February. Towards a mediatization of critical stances of heritage destruction. Sensory Cultures of Religion Research Group, Center for the Study of Material and Visual Cultures of Religion, Yale University. Travel and accommodation costs funded.

 

2019

*September. Heritage destruction and film. Culture Under Attack Symposium, Imperial War Museum, London, UK. Travel and accommodation costs funded.

 

January. Fallism/Unfallism in Syria: the case of the Hafez Al-Assad statues. Cultural Stability or Conflict: Border-Straddling Heritage in West Asia. Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.

 

2018

*August. The destruction of heritage and landscape in Western Australia. MARINAs seminar at Forensic Architecture, London, UK. Travel and accommodation costs funded.

 

*(with C. Albarrán). June. Mexico City on film: the actor, the protagonist. Australian Center for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia.

 

January. Digitally mediated iconoclasm: The Islamic State and the war on cultural heritage. Alfred Deakin Institute Research Day, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia.

 

January. Digitally mediated iconoclasm: The Islamic State and the war on cultural heritage. La Colonie, Paris, France.

 

2017

August. Digitally mediated iconoclasm: The Islamic State and the war on cultural heritage. “Syria Ancient History – Modern Conflict Symposium”, Session 5: War, Destruction, Cultural Heritage and Cultural Diversity, Melbourne, Australia.

 

*July. A (new) method of studying heritage destruction. “Addressing the New Landscape of Terrorism Conference”, Session 2: Societal Impact of ISIS: sectarianism, polarisation and populism, Bangkok, Thailand. Travel and accommodation costs funded.

 

March. Cultural cleansing and iconoclasm under the ‘Islamic State’: Human/heritage attacks on Yezidis and Christians. School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, the University of Melbourne, Australia.

 

2016

*October. Cultural cleansing and iconoclasm under the ‘Islamic State’: Human/heritage attacks on Yezidis and Christians. Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, UK. Travel and accommodation costs funded.

 

*October. Cultural cleansing and iconoclasm under the ‘Islamic State’: Human/heritage attacks on Yezidis and Christians. Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham. Travel costs funded.

 

*September. Cultural cleansing and iconoclasm under the ‘Islamic State’: Human/heritage attacks on Yezidis and Christians. General Education Unit, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Travel costs funded.

 

*March. Iconoclasm and communities in the Middle East. Working Group “Pluralism and Community the Middle East”, Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Doha, Qatar. Travel and accommodation costs funded.

 

February. Reflections on iconoclasm and Australia’s art history. “New perspectives on Italian and Australian art history. A symposium in honour of Professor Jaynie Anderson”, The University of Melbourne, Australia.

 

January. Contemporary heritage destruction and iconoclasm in the Middle East. Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City, Mexico.

 

*January. Contemporary heritage destruction and iconoclasm in the Middle East. Maestría en Arte y Estética, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico.

 

2015

October. What does ISIS communicates through iconoclasm? “Heritage Destruction in the Middle East: Beyond the Media Hype”, Deakin University, Australia.

 

May. An introduction to prehistory. National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City, Mexico.

 

February. Landscape iconoclasm. Postgraduate Seminar Series, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, The University of East Anglia.

 

February. Cultural landscapes in Australia. Visiting Lecturer Series, Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham.

 

2014

December. The Cannes film festival as a precursor of heritage diplomacy. 2nd International Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, Session: Heritage Diplomacy, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

 

July. Moctezuma: the problem of headdress and heritage. Public Lectures Series, The University of Melbourne.

 

*May. Rediscovering the Aztecs. Aztec Lectures Series for the Aztecs exhibition at Melbourne Museum.

 

*May. Researching ancient images. PhD subject “Researching Images” at the School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne.

 

May. From rock to digital: 17,000 years of painting at Lascaux. Digital Humanities Forum at the Baillieau Library, The University of Melbourne.

 

2013

October. Presentation of the film La Zona (Rodrigo Pla) at the Film Series by the Spanish Resource Centre, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

 

September. Landscape iconoclasm. Postgraduate Masterclass: “The Thesis of your Thesis”, Australian Institute of Art History, The University of Melbourne.

 

September. Roundtable: What caused the creation of art? 25th Valcamonica Symposium, Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici, Valcamonica, Italy.

 

September. Rethinking heritage. Landscape iconoclasm in the Burrup Peninsula (Western Australia). Archaeological and Anthropological Society of Victoria (AASV), Melbourne Museum. Shortlisted for Best Student Lecture of 2013.

 

September. Landscape iconoclasm. “Iconoclasm” Symposium, Newman College, Melbourne, Australia.

 

August. The Burrup Peninsula. Lecture presented at a social gathering organised by the Stand Up for the Burrup campaign, Brunswick, Victoria.

 

2012

*July. Heritage today. Panel of early career scholars at the Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art, Section 6, World Heritage: Cultural Identity and the War against Works of Art, Nuremberg, Germany.

 

2011

December. Taming the foreign object: dispossession and ephemeral heritage in Murujuga. Australian Archaeological Association conference, “The Sociality of Archaeology”, Session Rock Art of the North, Toowoomba, QLD.


Teaching

I am the module leader of:


MCH8612 Heritage Lives, Media, Messages and Form (Semester 1).

MCH8552 Heritage Processes, Global Perspectives, Practices and Politics (Semester 2).

Publications

  • Articles

  • Authored Books

    • Gonzalez Zarandona, A. Murujuga—Rock Art, Heritage and Landscape Iconoclasm. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Breve historia del cine experimental. Saarbrücken: Spanish Academic Editorial, 2012.

  • Book Chapters

  • Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

    • Gonzalez Zarandona JA. Destruction of images; images of destruction: critical stances of contemporary heritage. In: Motion: Transformation. 35th Congress of the International Committee of the History of Arts. 2021, Florence: Bononia University Press.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona JA. Between death and taboo: heritage destruction in the digital turn. In: Heritage in Conflict. 2021, Marburg, Germany; Melbourne, Australia: Peeters Press.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Ruffian Fernandez, F, Fernandez Diaz, M, Sabrine, I, Ibañez, J, Claramunt-Lopez, B, Escobar, A. The documentation and protection of cultural heritage during emergencies. In: International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. 2020.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. From rock to digital: Art Historical Scholarship in Prehistoric Art. In: Terms, 34th CIHA Congress Proceedings. 2019, Beijing: Commercial Press.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Landscape destruction and heritage mismanagement in Murujuga (Western Australia). In: Quality Management of Cultural Heritage. Problems and best practices. Proceedings of the XVII UISPP World Congress. 2016, Burgos: British Archaeological Reports.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Why do humans create art?. In: What caused the creation of art? A Round Table at the 25th Valcamonica Symposium. 2013, Atelier.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Iconoclash and Prehistoric Art. In: Art as a source of history. 25th Valcamonica Symposium 2013. 2013, Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici. In Preparation.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Destruction of heritage or secular iconoclasm? The case of Dampier Archipelago rock art. In: The Challenge of the Object/Die Herausforderung des Objekts, 33th CIHA Congress Proceedings. 2013, Nuremberg: Germanisches Nationalmuseum.

  • Edited Book

  • Online Publications

    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. The history of Indigenous Australia is not written in books but it is engraved on the rocks in the landscape; that is why Indigenous heritage is obliterated in Australia. 2020. Available at: https://adi.deakin.edu.au/news/the-history-of-indigenous-australia-is-not-written-in-books-but-it-is-engraved-on-the-rocks-in-the-landscape. In Preparation.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Garduño, C. Why are we so moved by the plight of the Notre Dame?. The Conversation, 2019. Available at: https://theconversation.com/why-are-we-so-moved-by-the-plight-of-the-notre-dame-115555.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Viñetas de la destrucción: Los Budas de Bamiyán (2001). ECOS. Blog de la División de Historia del CIDE, 2019. Available at: http://ecos.cide.edu/vinetas-de-la-destruccion-los-budas-de-bamiyan-2001/. In Preparation.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Albarran, C. From Charlottesville to Nazi Germany – Sometimes monuments have to fall. The Conversation, 2017. Available at: https://theconversation.com/from-charlottesville-to-nazi-germany-sometimes-monuments-have-to-fall-82643. In Preparation.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Isakhan, B. Erasing history: why Islamic State is blowing up ancient artefacts. The Conversation, 2017. Available at: https://theconversation.com/erasing-history-why-islamic-state-is-blowing-up-ancient-artefacts-78667.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Isakhan, B. Destroying Mosul’s Great Mosque: Islamic State’s symbolic war to the end. The Conversation, 2017. Available at: https://theconversation.com/destroying-mosuls-great-mosque-islamic-states-symbolic-war-to-the-end-80002. In Preparation.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Against ISIS’ Destruction of Heritage, and for Curators as the Cure of Souls. The Conversation, 2015. Available at: https://theconversation.com/against-isis-destruction-of-heritage-and-for-curators-as-the-cure-of-souls-46601.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. On the meaning of the destruction of works of art. Cuadrivio. Hic et Ubique, 2011. Available at: https://cuadrivio.net/artes/del-significado-de-la-destruccion-de-obras-de-arte/. In Preparation.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Alfonso Cuarón. Senses of Cinema, 2009. Available at: https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2009/great-directors/alfonso-cuaron/.

  • Reports

    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Isakhan, B. Funding the ‘Islamic State’: Looting Antiquities and the international black market (Edition 2). Department of Defense, Australian Government, 2024. Submitted.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Isakhan, B. Trends in heritage destruction in North-East Syria. Department of Defence, Australian Government, 2017. Submitted.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Isakhan, B. Trends in heritage destruction in Iraq and Syria (2011-2016). Department of Defense, Australian Government, 2017. Submitted.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Isakhan, B. Heritage destruction and inciting violence under the ‘Islamic State’. Department of Defense, Australian Government, 2015. Submitted.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA, Isakhan, B. Funding the ‘Islamic State’: Looting antiquities and the international black market. Department of Defence, Australian Government, 2015. Submitted.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Heritage as a cultural measure in a postcolonial setting. Australian Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, 2012. Australian Heritage Strategy. Submitted.

  • Reviews

    • Gonzalez Zarandona JA. Art for Coexistence: Unlearning the Way We See Migration, by Christine Ross. Art History 2024, 47(3), 621-624.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Lo que la cueva nos dejó: reseña de The Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog). ISTOR 2011, (47), 143-147. Submitted.
    • Gonzalez Zarandona, JA. Australia and its debt with the Aboriginal people: review of the film The Castle (Rob Stitch). Letras Libres 2011.