Looks at the art practice of Gunta Parups who was and remains a displaced person. The experience of leaving one's homeland as a refugee at the age of thirteen during the war is etched indelibly into her being.
The way that I want to convey that meaning [racism] here is to use a small number of relatively random examples of current art/race = art/power debates from around the world. They give a flavour of the issues. They have obvious relevance to Australia's relationship to the rest of the world, as well as to relationships within Australia.
An exhibition of contemporary Aboriginal art 'Aboriginal Art and Spirituality' opened at the High Court of Australia in 1991. The exhibition to tour after its opening in Canberra.....All of the works in the exhibition speak quite overtly about the highly problematic intervention of the missions, the politics of racism and the way in which Aboriginal spirituality will always remain linked to the land.
Theatro Oneiron (Theatre of Dreams) a Greek Australian performance ensemble established in Adelaide in the mid 1980s is the result of dedication and vision. Photo from production of 'The Courtyard of Miracles' 1991 included in the article.
Fortunately the artists are capable of overturning all the newly acceptable conceits about them, and they might deny most of the assumptions that multicultural academics make about them, whilst still giving a new window on our world, as indeed, all good art from anywhere will.
I migrated to Australia from China in March 1983 with nothing but 60 kg of books and manuscripts plus a big cultural bundle - all the things; the Classical Literature, the History and the Philosophy that I had been taught over the last 24 years....
Palimpsest...Vision of a multicultural Australia. An exhibition co-ordinated by the Multicultural Arts Trust of South Australia, December 1990 Chesser Gallery Adelaide. Great colour photos.