Ann Elias is Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Sydney. Research interests include camouflage as a military, social and aesthetic phenomenon; flowers and their cultural history; coral reef imagery of the underwater realm. Books include Camouflage Australia: art, nature, science and war (2011), Useless Beauty: flowers and Australian art (2015), and Coral Empire (2019). She is a Research Affiliate with the Sydney Environment Institute. Research in progress asks how the underwater of Sydney Harbour relates to Australian, Pacific and world social histories.