For a number of years the collaboration of Farrell and Parkin has produced photographic imagery dealing with medical history. Their photographic work involves the almost archaeological reconstruction of medical contraptions together with bandaging and stirrups and so on which are described in medical texts.
The new building was conceived with the idea that artworks would be included throughout the new hospital as part of the desire to create a total healing environment. Since 1995 when the first patients were admitted the collection has continued to grow. An illustrated catalogue of the collection has also been published.
Art medicine and the body was a project spanning 18 months. There were 28 participating artists. The exhibition opened at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art in August 1996 followed by the performance and forum.
Medical imaging through the work of nine artists: James Guppy, Ruth Waller, Victor Dellavia, Elizabeth Abbott, Julie Rrap, Jan Parker, Tina Gonsalves, Kate Campbell-Pope and Claire Bailey. Artists statements and colour images included.
Body suits, conceived by Jane Trengove of Arts Access Victoria, proposes the body as a site for investigation with the contributing artists being mostly people who experience 'bodily difference due to disability'. Touring show in 1997.
One of the general aims of internationally focussed survey exhibitions is to reflect the art of a particular time....However there is also a sense in which exhibitions of this nature can tend to operate as a form of cultural engineering, where the very status of inclusion in such exhibitions influences the kind of work made.
Exhibition review In focus: Rover Thomas
Stories: Works from the Holmes a Court Collection
Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery
The University of Western Australia
Part of the 1997 Festival of Perth
Carnal art is self portraiture in the classical sense, but realised through the possibility of technology. It swings between defiguration and refiguration. Its inscription in the flesh is a function of our age. The body has become a 'modified ready-made', no longer seen as the ideal it once represented.
Looks at the conference 'inter sections 1996' hosted by the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales. The theme for the conference was Imag(in)ing Bodies; Issues of art, design, technolgy, health, medicine and science.