Hybrid Arts, Cultural Policy and Chinese Whispers

Recently some of the individual, performance and new media artists who have been collaborating across borders in Brisbane and Queensland have networked their way out of the city and into Europe and Asia. With cross commissions and research and development for contemporary performance work there is a new and vibrant creative export. This article explores some of these artists and their international work and looks at how such collaborated efforts are contributing to a new examination of what culture actually is for a country steeped in its European heritage. Follows the practice of local performance artist Lisa ONeil and her collaborations with Keith Armstrong as well as examining The Bonemap Project initiated by artists Russell Milledge and Rebecca Youdell.

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Parallel Precincts

Once depressed inner-city suburbs that were havens for students, migrants, artists and fringe communities, the high profile precincts of South Brisbane/West End and Fortitude Valley/New Farm have developed into fast-growing centres of urban residential and cultural development. The Millennium Arts Program now underway will see the expenditure of over $100 million on the development of a new Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) through the Queensland Art Gallery's Two Sites-One Visionstrategy. Heather locates the diversity of Brisbane's arts and culture scene through such new and existing precincts, establishments which mark an exciting transformation in the future of the cities art scene.

Robert Heather

Ruth Waller

Watters Gallery, Sydney 25 March - 26 April 2003

Joanna Mendelssohn

Madonna Staunton

Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane 13 March - 18 April 2003

Timothy Morrell

Changing Identity: Culture and the City

Ian Hamilton

Is Art Built-in Built-out? debating public art

In 1999 Art Built-in was declared public policy by the Queensland Government, mandating that two percent of all construction budgets over $250,000 across governments be allocated to the artworks equating to some $15m worth of arts projects annually. Recently the first in a series of formal debates took place to canvas opinion on results so far. The topic was that the role of the curator is essential to create great public art. Looks at the role of local artists such as Jay Younger and her collaborative partner, architect Michael Rayner as well as Wendy Mills and Jill Kinnear.

Ingrid Hoffmann

Ten Days on the Island

Tasmania Artistic Adviser Robyn Archer 28 March - 6 April 2003

Stephanie Britton

Great White Sharks

Holubizkys article deals with the ever present attitude that Brisbane is a city 20 years behind the times in the cultural sector and poses the question as to what this really means? Culture has become a business only within the relative scheme of things, and ahead may only be the false competitive edge and gamesmanship of regional-urban cultural ambition. Comparisons, therefore, should not be made lightly, nor benchmarks for the vitality of a cultural milieu. Discusses the works of Craig Walsh, Eugene Carchesio, Caitlin Reid and Vernon Ah Kee.

Robert Harrison

A History of Forgetting

Anderson looks at one of Brisbanes formative cultural events, The Demolition Show, an exhibition curated by John Stafford in 1986 to mark to demise of the relatively short lived Observatory artist run space and in the fact the whole city block that surrounded it. This notion of demolition is raised in this article not only in the context of this particular event but also as a way of exploring a past which has for the most part fallen through the cracks. As Anderson states: Long after the dust has settled, the perception that Brisbane has no past in visual art, no critical mass, still lingers. Yet it is far from a new issue.

Peter Anderson

Vacant Space

Anthony Johnson Inflight, North Hobart 8 - 28 March 2003

Philip Watkins

Mightier than the Sword: Arabic Script, Beauty and Meaning

Arabic Script, Beauty and Meaning Ian Potter Museum of Art University of Melbourne 22 March - 23 May 2003 A touring exhibition from the British Museum in association with the Aitajir World of Islam Trust Guest Curator, Venetia Porter

Juliette Peers

New Media Art in Brisbane

The investigation of New Media Art is especially relevant in a city that is hyped with the rhetoric about critical mass in the New Media and Creative Industries. Machan here attempts to redraw some lines of definition in what the term New Media Art actually means, as it is often seen as a doomed and short-lived handle. She does this through examining some of the key New Media artists (including Craig Walsh, Keith Armstrong, Tim Plaisted, Bonemap, Trish Adams, Di Ball, Grant Stevens, Jenny Fraser, Simone Hine, Alex Gillespie, Jay Younger, Adam Donovan, Andrew Kettle and Molly Hankwitz) and the difference between New Media and other visual arts as well as looking at government support and initiatives in the line of New Media Arts.

Kim Machan

Light Black: Catherine Truman, Robin Best, Sue Lorraine

JamFactory, Adelaide 1 March - 4 May 2003 Asialink tour to National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto

Margot Osborne

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