An Unlandscape of words and painting: from Meenamatta to paradise
This article explores new territory opened up by a cross-cultural collaboration between Indigenous poet Jim Everett and visual artist Jonathan Kimberley.
In 2008 Nathan Gray spent two months on Itaparica, a Brazilian island in the Bahia region, as part of an exchange initiated by The South Project Inc. At the end of the year the exhibition Tudo Que Acho was held to show the work created and produced as a result of the residency. The title in English means ‘everything I think’. In Portuguese the phrase also denotes discovery, as ‘to think’ and ‘to find’ signify the same act. Tudo Que Acho: Nathan Gray was shown 4 – 20 December 2008 at The Narrows, Melbourne.
The Long March Project founded by Lu Jie is an ongoing art project that began with a philosophical evaluation of the complex role and meaning of art and selfhood, in all its political, economic, cultural, and social guises. It is critical that new opportunities are found for artistic reciprocity that exist beyond the presumed centres of art validation (ie. America and Europe). The Long March directs the gaze of Chinese cultural producers to re-assess how art can be a tool through which ideas of making – self, thought, object – can be critically empowered and conceived.
On a residency at the Taipei Artists Village in Taiwan in 2007 Gregory Pryor researched a plant from which tongcao or pith paper was traditionally made. The complex collaborative journey to find the plant and the way its pith is removed forms a celebratory echo to his previous work Black Solander 2005 about endangered plants in Western Australia.
Haema Sivanesan, Curator and Executive Director of SAVAC ( South Asian Visual Arts Centre) in Toronto Canada, analyses the current situation of Asian contemporary art by looking at work that is not only cross-cultural but concerned with bridging cultures and being a form of social action rather than simply engaging with commodity culture.
The enchanted forest: new gothic storytellers Curator: Jazmina Cininas Geelong Gallery, 12 April - 9 June 2008; Bendigo Art Gallery, 19 July – 17 August 2008; Shepparton Art Gallery, 1 November – 14 December 2008; Latrobe Regional Gallery, 21 February – 19 April 2009; Swan Hill Regional Art Gallery, 1 May – 7 June 2009; Dubbo Regional Gallery , 4 July – 13 September 2009; Tweed River Art Gallery, 1 October – 15 November 2009
Paul Carter's Nearamnew, a public art work which is embedded in the 7,500 square metres of paving at Federation Square, asks for multiple, inclusive and open-ended responses.