Senior Lecturer at the Power Institute, University of Sydney, Catriona Moore writes bout the recent work of Fiona MacDonald in terms of its connections to locality and history.
Novelist and former Director of Research and Postgraduate Studies in the College of Arts at the University of Western Sydney Jane Goodall responds to the new collection of essays edited by Brad Buckley and John Conomos called 'Rethinking the Contemporary Art School'. Goodall analyses the complexity and often dire times engendered by the incorporation of art schools into universities. However she is optimistic and suggests a first step to be a well-designed retreat system.
Joanna Mendelssohn examines a new book on photography, second in a series, this time juxtaposing German and Australian artists. Mendelssohn writes "What Germany and Australia have in common is a certain navel-gazing obsession about what it means to belong to their particular nationalities."
'Unlimited Asia Pacific' is a platform for the Queensland state government to join Victoria as a leading force in Australia’s emergent design economy. It coincides with the birth of the Australian Design Alliance as a lobbying group to promote design as a capacity across government.
Chief Curator at the National Institute for Experimental Arts (NIEA) at the College of Fine Arts, Uni of NSW, Felicity Fenner discusses the HotHouse Symposium the launch event of a longer-term research project called 'Curating Cities' being conducted by NIEA in association with Object: Australian Centre for Craft and Design and the City of Sydney. Other research partners include the Melbourne-based group, Carbon Arts, which facilitates opportunities for artists to generate awareness and action on climate change. The central premise of the project is that we can no longer simply curate art, but need to think more holistically, instead curating space in ways that are environmentally sustainable.
University of Chicago Professor Wu Hung analyses Sydney and Beijing-based Shen Shaomin's Bonsai series as seen at the MCA for the 2010 Biennale of Sydney as "uncovering secrets".