Diorama of the City: Between Site & Space 13 September - 13 October 2008 Tokyo Wonder Site Artists: Alex Gawronski, Gail Priest, Tim Silver, Hiraku Suzuki, exonemo, Paramodel
Senior Curator at Christchurch Art Gallery Justin Paton reflects on curating the exhibition that he remembers most fondly and that speaks to him of the magic of curating - the show of wall paintings called Big Talk by US word- artist Kay Rosen in 2004 at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT)'s Curator of Southeast Asian Art and Material Culture Joanna Barrkman curated Husi Bei Ala Timor Sira Nia Liman /From the Hands of Our Ancestors which is on at MAGNT in Darwin from 21 November 2008 to 12 July 2009. The show celebrates the survival of Timor-Leste's cultural inheritance and asks whether traditional art forms and techniques have a role to play in the formation and assertion of Timor-Leste's national and cultural identity.
In September 2008 Dylan Rainforth went to both the 7th Shanghai Biennale (Translocalmotion) and the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial (Farewell to Post-Colonialism). While he found mixed messages in Shanghai which was curated by artistic director Zhang Qing assisted by Julian Heynen and Henk Slager, it was Guangzhou curated by Gao Shiming, Sarat Maharaj and Johnson Chang that hit the sweet spot with 'witty, people-powered ways forward.'
In May 2008 Wagga Wagga Art Gallery's new Director Cath Bowdler curated Crossfire, an exhibition of resonating artworks from the Gallery's two major collections, the National Art Glass Collection and the Margaret Carnegie Print Collection, as a way of introducing herself to both the space and the place. Bowdler was initially inspired by the glass work Salt on Mina Mina by Dorothy Napangardi.
Campbelltown Arts Centre's chief curator and director Lisa Havilah creates challenging and confronting exhibitions like For Matthew and Others (2006), News from Islands (2007) and Ai Weiwei: Under Construction (2008). She believes that: 'contemporary art centres that sit outside of the metropolitan centres provide the highest level of opportunity for the development and application of new forms of curatorial practice.'