More from this Issue
SBS TV Arts
With the exception of some programming on SBS and the ABC, artists receive very little exposure on television. The limitations of television, the need to maintain a wide audience reach, the difficult question of what is 'good art' in a televisual sense, all may help to explain the absence of living artists from this, the most powerful of all media.
Performing in Tongues
...Underlying this linguistic fertility is a migrant intuition of the relativity of language, of the lightness and mutability of its phonology, inflections and syntax. Less portentously there is no migrant to this country who has not experienced those punning co-incidences, echoic repetitions, mutual misunderstandings and mishearings which are the basis of my scripts. It may be no accident that in 1992 Australian voices evoke first contact with the New World.
Reflecting the Mix - Insights: Visual Resource Guide to Film and Video
If mainstream television is not our main source of accurate images, how do people gain access to programs which reflect our society in realistic and creative ways?
Julia Ciccarone
The artist writes about her art practice, in particular her preoccupation with the Australian landscape and how people perceive it. Two images are included: 'Secret Self' and 'Blanket' both from 1990.
A Very Personal View
A very personal view. And finally there is a need for us to allow art and artists to develop from their own roots, regardless of their country or culture of origin.
Visions in the South Pacific: The Immigrant Artist: A Twice Told Tale
Colonial Ghettoes: the possibilities and limitations of new identity as vision.
A Letter from Berlin
Hossein Valamanesh writes from Berlin hoping that this issue of Artlink will help in the understanding of the multicultural nature of Australian Culture and not assist in any way in making pigeon holes to safely classify the issue.
Ginger Riley Munduwalawala: Working on a Heroic Scale
Looks at the art practice of Ginger Riley Munduwalawala, born in 1937 at Ngukurr in the Northern Territory. Good colour photos of the artist and some works.
A Matter of Representation
Since the birth of Australian television, non-anglo Australians have suffered from an acute case of foreign accent syndrome. Unfortunately 35 years on they are still suffering, not only from bad accents usually spoken by Anglo actors playing NESBs, but from the dearth of authentic storylines and subsequently the lack of accurate representation of NESBs on our TV and screens.
Karin Lettau
Brief article looking at the art practice of Karin Lettau. Good colour photographs of the work.
National Multicultural Arts Network
The Network links NESB, ethnic and arts organisations, sets up cross cultural and other training programs for artists, arts organisations and the media and lobbies governments and other funding bodies to reassess their policies and practices.