Art as Cultural Diplomacy: Back to the Drawing Board

How would we re-present ourself to the rest of the world if we became a republic? It is the treatment of Australia's indigenous people that will ultimately determine both how we can imagine our own cultural development and how we are viewed by other cultures in the region.

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The New Republics: Contemporary Art from Australia, Canada and South Africa

The ideas behind this project stem from the particular legacy of Black British arts practice in the 1980s....This touring visual arts exhibition and book project tries to deconstruct the notion of the centre (London/UK/Europe) both as a site of former colonial power and as a site of current economic and cultural power.

Sunil Gupta

Towards a Pre-Capitalist Flag

Australia's flag has as much to do with contests as with consensus. The original design resulted from a 1901-2 competition sponsored by a tobacco company.

Humphrey McQueen

To Have or to Hold

Containment Debra Dawes, Zsolt Faludi, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Carlier Makigawa, Susan Norrie, Mary Scott. Curator: Clare Bond. Plimsoll Gallery, Hobart 12 April -2 May, 1997 University Gallery. Launceston 2 - 31 July, 1997 Reviewed by Mary Knights

Mary Knights

Symbols for Australia

Trademarks and logos have been vital ways of marketing goods and services for well over a century. What are the readily identifiable symbols for Australia?

Peter Spearritt

Thinking Like a Sheep, Acting Like a Ham

Some thoughts on performance and the Australian cinema. Verhoeven snuggles up to the sheep film as a clue to what Australian filmmakers have held dear. Nationalism and republicanism examined.

Deb Verhoeven

The Sublime and the Parochial: The Foot of God

In Australia, the land has been, for non-Aboriginal settlers, from the beginning a sign for the nation and for the manufacture of livelihood (the sheep's back, mineral wealth) as well as a repository of dreams and misapprehensions. The importance of the land to Aboriginal Australian ought to be easy for us to comprehend.

Stephanie Radok

The Path of Peace

Arts of Vanuatu Ed Bonnemaison, Huffman Kaufmann, Tryon. Published by Crawford House RRP $69.95

Barry Craig

The Lie of the Land

Fiona Foley's 'The Lie of the Land' is an extraordinary piece of art and soundwork that illustrates yet another taking of land and culture from the indigenous people of this land.

Joy Murphy

Post-Colonial Dreaming

Mapping the Comfort Zone: The Dream and the Real works by Irene Briant, Jenny Clapson, Jo Crawford, Christine James. Catherine K, Nien Schwartz, Lucinda Clutterbuck & Sarah Watt. Artspace, Adelaide Festival Centre 4 July - 16 August 1997

Cath Kenneally

Mothertongue

Re Affiliations 12 June - 13 July 1997 Margaret Sanders, Claudia Lünig, Clare Martin, Hanh Ngo, Maria Stukoff, Lisa Jeong, Paloma Ramos, Madelaine Neveu Nexus Gallery, Adelaide

Stephanie Radok

Hard Edge Political

Lawyers, Guns and Money 19 June - 7 September Experimental Art Foundation Lion Arts Centre, North Terrace, Adelaide.

Cate Jones

Glue and Yeast: Asian Perceptions and the Year 2000

The perception of 'culture' underlies all our relations in Asia. What are we? Are we as we are perceived? It is a really pertinent, dynamic interesting moment in our history, and in a wider world, in the history of this region.

Alison Carroll

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