Making a virtue out of adversity: Christchurch post-earthquake

Director of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu Jenny Harper writes about the resilience and the pioneering spirit of the many and varied achievements of the Gallery since the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Canterbury.

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Khmer pop-lock: saving kids through breaking

It's tough being a refugee, really tough for some. Cambodian Tuy 'KK' Sobil's story begins in a refugee camp in Thailand, travels to the US where he winds up in prison for eight years and more happily shifts to Phnom Penh where he landed as a deportee from the US and has since become an important role model teaching hiphop dancing and music to vulnerable children.

Annemarie Kohn

Coming soon: Big mining and the question of scale

Ann Finegan raises the alarm on the fiendish short-sighted depradations of Big Coal open cut mining in the lower Hunter Valley and other places currently under threat. She describes the work done by artist/activists in response and asks: "How does one fight such incommensurables of scale and the slow unfold of food bowl and water disaster? Where do we start? With protective changes to State and Federal legislation? With commensurable economic data?"

Ann Finegan

Contact lenses: Lloyd Godman's ecological art

New Zealand-born ecological artist, Lloyd Godman, who now lives in Australia, has in his own determined way for over thirty years, pondered and acted upon questions of how aesthetics might be involved in creating sustainable solutions to environmental problems. Historian Helen McDonald uses eco-critic Timothy Morton's notion of ambient aesthetics to examine three of Godman's multimedia projects.

Helen McDonald

Merilyn Fairskye: Precarious

Gina Fairley

9th Shanghai Biennale: Re-Activation

Chief Curator: Qiu Zhijie Co-curators: Boris Groys, Jens Hoffmann, Johnson Chang Shanghai Power Station of Art and other venues 2 October 2012 – 31 March 2013

Maya Kramer

The art of climate change

Paul Downton

A Universe of Small Truths: Julie Henderson

AEAF (Australian Experimental Art Foundation), Adelaide 20 July – 18 August 2012

Littler Kim

Jarragbu-nungu Warrambany: Flood in Warmun

On 13 March 2011 a deluge of water swept through the Warrmarn [Warmun] community. It rushed into Turkey Creek from the tributaries that flow northward from the Purnululu ranges and from the eastern hills. Assistant manager and curator at Warmun Arts Centre Cate Massola asks how much consultation with residents occurred around their evacuation and the rebuilding of their homes.

Cate Massola

Remarking | Remaking: Contemporary Australian Drawing Connections

Curators: Abdullah M. I. Syed and Wenmin Li Nicole Barakat, Denis Beaubois, Nick Brown, Muamer Cajic, Anie Nheu, Ana Pollack, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Marikit Santiago, Shay Tobin, Teo Treloar Remarking | Remaking Community Project Nicole Barrakat in collaboration with Blacktown Indian Subcontinent Women’s Group Blacktown Arts Centre 20 July – 1 September 2012

Grace Hughes

In a silent way

Curator: Matt Warren Laura Altman, Monica Brooks, Nicolas Bullen, Darren Cook, Gail Priest, Lawrence English, Samaan Fieck, Joel Stern Contemporary Art Spaces, Hobart 28 July – 26 August 2012

Claire Krouzecky

Deadly ennui

Pat Hoffie

Editorial: Art in the face of disaster

Humanity seems to be on the brink of annihilating the natural world on which we depend. Our quarrelsome species has built a gigantic web of capitalism, connecting global corporations, consumerism, the markets, the military, rhetoric machines called politicians and the organisations and institutions that now include, tragically, the universities.

Stephanie Britton

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