Cover of Arts in a Multicultural Australia
 

Arts in a Multicultural Australia

Issue 11 nos 1&2 | June 1991

Double issue examining the issues of arts in a multicultural context in Australia. Looks at the diversity of art practice, how it has developed and future possibilities. There are case studies, artists' profiles and snapshots of the various arts organisations involved in culturally and linguistically diverse arts practice.

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Features

'...The Divinity of Optimism', Le Thanh Nhon at Acacia Centre
Feature
May Lam

Le Thanh Nhon and the Acacia Indo-Chinese Children's Centre.

Published June 1991
4 Artists from WA
Feature
Julian Goddard

Looks at the art practice of four artists in Western Australia - Patrizia Tonello, Alex Spremberg, Cathy Cinanni and Karl Wiebke. Illustrations of their independent works included.

Published June 1991
A Letter from Berlin
Feature
Hossein Valamanesh

Hossein Valamanesh writes from Berlin hoping that this issue of Artlink will help in the understanding of the multicultural nature of Australian Culture and not assist in any way in making pigeon holes to safely classify the issue.

Published June 1991
A Living Museum at Work in Melbourne's Multicultural West
Feature
Olwen Ford

Those who come to know Melbourne's western suburbs find many treasures in the region's history, heritage, environment and contemporary culture.

Published June 1991
A Matter of Representation
Feature
Monica Pellizarri

Since the birth of Australian television, non-anglo Australians have suffered from an acute case of foreign accent syndrome. Unfortunately 35 years on they are still suffering, not only from bad accents usually spoken by Anglo actors playing NESBs, but from the dearth of authentic storylines and subsequently the lack of accurate representation of NESBs on our TV and screens.

Published June 1991
A New Multiculturalism-in-the-Arts Program for South Australia
Feature
Stephanie Britton

In December 1990 the South Australian Government announced a new 'Multiculturalism-in-the-Arts' Program to encourage major arts organisations in receipt of government funding to increase their activities for people from linguistic and culturally diverse backgrounds.

Published June 1991
A Very Personal View
Feature
Myk Mykyta

A very personal view. And finally there is a need for us to allow art and artists to develop from their own roots, regardless of their country or culture of origin.

Published June 1991
Accelerate
Feature
Sam Schoenbaum

"I used to boast about you, my son the painter. You painted trees, now you paint squares to humiliate me." Quote by the artist's father in the early 1970s Melbourne.

Published June 1991
Alike/Unalike: Cultural Diversity in Australian Independent Film
Feature
Bill Mousoulis

Cultural diversity is crucial. Film makers may be unlike (in terms of cultural background) but they are also alike (in terms of their value.) In the area of independent film, there are a number of films which deal with multicultural themes and/or give non Anglo film-makers the opportunity to express themselves. One hopes that mainstream film can take up on this lead, because, from all apparent evidence, it remains sorely imbalanced.

Published June 1991
Are You Being Served? An Open Invitation from MAC
Feature
Charlie Schiavone

Multicultural Artworker's Committee [MAC] aims to provide all citizens with equal opportunity to access and promote art in its various forms.

Published June 1991
Arriving at a Sense of Position
Feature
Christl Berg

At times, life feels like a collection of unrelated events, a necklace without the string. Christl Berg writes of her experiences of leaving Germany when she was 25 and having lived in three different continents with three different cultures at varied stages in her life.

Published June 1991
Art and Racism: Inter-National Issues
Feature
Alison Carroll

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.

Published June 1991
Artists of Malaysian Origin in Melbourne
Feature
Chok-Dee Teng

Survey of five Malaysian artists living and working in Melbourne Australia. Great colour photos of their works.

Published June 1991
As Australian as AMPOL
Feature
Penny Webb

How much marketability is immanent in the artist's cultural background is a matter of delicate negotiation between dealer and client. Just now, it may appear to some artists an unfortunate fact that for them, Aboriginality is not an option.

Published June 1991
Australian Contemporary Design in Jewish Ceremony
Feature
Helen Light

Ritual and ceremony enrich all aspects of Jewish life, its life cycle events and daily life. Jews give constant thanks for God's munificence - for the first fruits of the season, for the food on the daily table, for new clothing donned. Everything is inbued with significance and for all events there are rituals.

Published June 1991
Backyard Culture
Feature
Gail Higginbottom

Questions of memory, history and identity in the work of Leandro Salomone.

Published June 1991
Beginning in the Middle
Feature
Evangelos Sakaris

Reflections on an exhibition of abstract art at Linden Gallery St Kilda, Melbourne March 1991. An emigrant artists once said to me "I can never abandon the figure and make purely abstract art, after all I am Greek".

Published June 1991
Bring Your Own and After...Migrant Publishing
Feature
Andras Dezsery

It is the responsibility of Australian Collections to preserve this material - correspondence and manuscripts as well as printed texts - in many languages, not as exotic flowers of 'accented' literature, but as integral parts of the history and literature of multicultural Australia.

Published June 1991
BulaBula: New High Tech Arts Centre, Ramingining
Feature
Steve Bunk

The three storey facility looks incongruous in the ramshackle Aboriginal settlement of Ramingining which crouches along a dirt road in an Arnhem Land eucalypt forest 550 km east of Darwin in the Northern Territory. Photos of people in Ramingining.

Published June 1991
Collaborative Impressions
Feature
Nola Routoulas

Exhibition review: Works by Nola Routoulas, Helen Karpathakis, Nora Mantzioris and Alexandra Akritidis.
Artzone Gallery, Adelaide South Australia April 1991

Published June 1991
Community Arts in Fairfield and Cabramatta
Feature
Meg Simpson

The Fairfield Community Arts Network is a community - based organisation which aims to develop cultural awareness in Fairfield with particular emphasis on the multicultural nature of the area.

Published June 1991
Concept of Country
Feature
Fiona Foley

Looks at the art practice of Fiona Foley (Thoorgine Country), Terry Ganadilla (Mewenbi Country) and Dale Yowingbala (Gamerdi Country), three aboriginal artists who worked together on an unusual project in Maningrida during 1991.

Published June 1991
Crossing Cultures in Dance
Feature
Stephanie Britton

Looks at the dance practice of the Bharatam Dance Company from Melbourne and at that stage in its 5th year of operation. Photos of the dancers in production included.

Published June 1991
Cultural Diversity and Public Galleries
Feature
Janis Wilton

Written with Joseph Eisenberg. The National Association for the Visual Arts [NAVA] is currently sponsoring a project on 'Multiculturalism and the immigrant artist in Australian visual culture'. Part of the study focuses on the role of public galleries in appreciating, exhibiting, and acquiring the work of Australian artists from non- English speaking backgrounds [NESB].

Published June 1991
Cultural Iconographies
Feature
Stephanie Britton

Cultural Iconographies is an exhibition of work by migrant and refugee artists who have been in Australia for a relatively short time. To take place in the Bondi Pavilion, Sydney during Carnivale October 1991.

Published June 1991
Desultory Remarks from a NESB Museologist
Feature
Amareswar Galla

It is evident we are trying to redress an imbalance in the cultural representation of our heritage and arts.

Published June 1991
Diario per una Vita Nuova
Feature
Mark Hinderaker

A multi media installation by Dennis Del Favero.

Published June 1991
Ethnicity and Excellence in the Arts
Feature
Sneja Gunew

One of the leading debates in Cultural Studies around the world deals with the issues of cultural difference or ethnicity in relation to concepts of a national culture.

Published June 1991
Film Makers Davor Dirlic and Laszlo Dudas
Feature
Anna Epstein

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.

Published June 1991
Ginger Riley Munduwalawala: Working on a Heroic Scale
Feature
Anthony Knight

Looks at the art practice of Ginger Riley Munduwalawala, born in 1937 at Ngukurr in the Northern Territory. Good colour photos of the artist and some works.

Published June 1991
Gunta Parups: A Latvian in Australia
Feature
Andra Kins

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.

Published June 1991
Heritage Revealed
Feature
George Boeck

The Australian National Gallery's library has just completed a project which documented ethnic and immigrant objects in about 750 photographs. The bulk of these photographs show textile and ceramic craft brought with immigrants to Australia or made in Australia following traditional methods and designs. Nearly 20 ethnic groups from Europe, the Middle East and Asia are represented. Photos of textiles included.

Published June 1991
How Clay Speaks for Neville Assad
Feature
Kevin Murray

The alphabet was invented, so they say, in Lebanon. To some Lebanese, their country represents an un-broken link with the birth of human history. Non-Aboriginal Australians, by contrast, share stories of interrupted family ties, of exile and forgetting. How then do these Lebanese relate to life in Australia?

Published June 1991
Images from the Esperanto Suite
Feature
Phillip George

During the process of producing his artworks, George looks for ways of translating different philosophical ideas into marks and images.

Published June 1991
Interview with James Mollison
Feature
Meredith Smith

The Office of Multicultural Affairs talks for Artlink with James Mollison, Director of the National Gallery of Victoria March 1991.

Published June 1991
Karin Lettau
Feature
Jane Deeth

Brief article looking at the art practice of Karin Lettau. Good colour photographs of the work.

Published June 1991
List of Resource Material for the Arts in Multicultural Australia
Feature
Helen Andreoni

A great starting point for more research in this area. List prepared by Dr Helen Andreoni, of the School of Aboriginal and Multicultural Studies, University of New England.

Published June 1991
Metaphors of Multiculturalism
Feature
Steve Routoulas

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.

Published June 1991
Milan Milojevic
Feature
Milan Milojevic

The artist writes about his art practice. Good colour photographs.

Published June 1991
Mirror in Mirror
Feature
Xiaolin Xue

Standing between the mirrors of East and West, my art always gets an inverted image and a double interpretation. This is me.....

Published June 1991
Mixing it in Broome and Darwin
Feature
Kerry Davies

The Broome Mix is useful to bear in mind when thinking on all things multicultural - cultural diversity. In Broome that's culture - a mix of Aboriginal, Asian and European.

Published June 1991
Multicultural Arts: Development and Change in Brisbane
Feature
Christopher Bowen

It is fair to say that the development of multicultural arts and the recognition of cultural diversity in Queensland is still in its early stages. Photos (6) of an event at the Cafe Folkloric.

Published June 1991
Multicultural Artworkers: Sacrificial Anodes?
Feature
Helen Andreoni

This is a new notion for me. I'm sure it is a term familiar to most readers. However, just in case, this is my version of what it means. To understand it you need to appreciate that there is an hierarchical order of metals determined by their 'nobility'. A sacrifical anode is less a noble metal which is used to attract impurities away from more noble metals that you do not wish to be eroded. Thus if you wish to avoid erosion in your copper boiler, you can put a sacrificial anode in the water which will attract the impurities in the water and keep them away from your noble boiler. The link between multicultural artworkers and sacrificial anodes is entirely my own!

Published June 1991
Multicultural, Aboriginal or Just Plain Australian
Feature
James Jupp

A great deal of agonising has gone on since the 1988 Bicentenary about the nature of Australian identity and therefore the nature of our distinctive culture.

Published June 1991
National Multicultural Arts Network
Feature
Eugenia Hill

The Network links NESB, ethnic and arts organisations, sets up cross cultural and other training programs for artists, arts organisations and the media and lobbies governments and other funding bodies to reassess their policies and practices.

Published June 1991
New Artist's Group: Dihedron
Feature
Anthony Gall

The tendency to pigeon hole 'ethnic' art as a second class art practised by minority groups is common in Australia too... Dihedron is a group of artists and supporters operating in Brisbane who share the common goal of helping artists in socio-cultural isolation.

Published June 1991
Ngura Kujara - Two Homes
Feature
Felicity Wright

Exhibition Review: Tandanya Adelaide South Australia January - June 1991. Interviews with curators Kerry Giles Kurwingie and John Kean. Images of inma at Ernabella included in the article.

Published June 1991
Observations of a Chinese Painter
Feature
Tang Qizhong

Tang Qizhong is a painter and Fine Arts educator from China. He writes about his art practice and the relationship between art practices and institutions in China and Australia.

Published June 1991
Other Peoples' Stories, Other Peoples' Voices
Feature
Ruby Langford

Does anyone have their right to represent stories and cultural background not their own? Does anyone have the responsibility to do so? No, I don't think so.....

Published June 1991
People's Cultural Action in Australia: The PACIN Experience
Feature
Christian Ramillo

Looks at workshops organised by PACIN - the Philippines-Australia Cultural Interaction Network for Asian and Pacific communities in Sydney.

Published June 1991
Performing in Tongues
Feature
Paul Carter

...Underlying this linguistic fertility is a migrant intuition of the relativity of language, of the lightness and mutability of its phonology, inflections and syntax. Less portentously there is no migrant to this country who has not experienced those punning co-incidences, echoic repetitions, mutual misunderstandings and mishearings which are the basis of my scripts. It may be no accident that in 1992 Australian voices evoke first contact with the New World.

Published June 1991
Realising Our Land of Promise
Feature
Sergios Proios

Looks at a number of community arts residencies undertaken in South Australia and the art practices of Andrew Hill and Eugenia Hill.

Published June 1991
Reflecting the Mix - Insights: Visual Resource Guide to Film and Video
Feature
Patricia Kelly

If mainstream television is not our main source of accurate images, how do people gain access to programs which reflect our society in realistic and creative ways?

Published June 1991
Satellite Dreaming
Feature
Tony Dowmunt

Making a TV documentary about indigenous people's television in Australia. Photographs on location at Ernabella in the Pitjantjatjara lands of far north west South Australia.

Published June 1991
SBS TV Arts
Feature
Geoffrey Dann

With the exception of some programming on SBS and the ABC, artists receive very little exposure on television. The limitations of television, the need to maintain a wide audience reach, the difficult question of what is 'good art' in a televisual sense, all may help to explain the absence of living artists from this, the most powerful of all media.

Published June 1991
Silvia Stansfield
Feature
Stephanie Radok

The ceramic work of Silvia Stansfield draws on the cultural legacy of South America. Discussion of the work of this artist with good colour photographs.

Published June 1991
Some Cultural Baggage on the Australian Literary Scene
Feature
Lolo Houbein

Above all we need new myths to suit the new Australian culture which is part of the Asia Pacific region. We can't live by Aboriginal myths alone, as some have suggested, in a land so changed by our coming. The unpacking of cultural baggage by writers of all cultural groups, old and new, has to continue until it gives rise to a myth which we all recognise as fitting the Australia to which we have contributed. Wrote David Malouf.

Published June 1991
Sprirituality Aboriginality
Feature
Sylvia Kleinert

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.

Published June 1991
Srecko Radman "... In the 'Start' Position"
Feature
Susan Faine

Discussion of the artist's practice as an artist from Croatia in Melbourne since 1971 - how is it affected by linguistic and ethnic differences.

Published June 1991
The Odyssey of Salvatore Zofrea
Feature
Joseph Eisenberg

Zofrea wrote "I want my work to sing forever."

Published June 1991
The Plan
Feature
Stephanie Britton

Looks at the 'National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia' launched by the Prime Minister in 1989 which included provision for the development of a plan for collecting institutions such as museums, art museums, libraries and archives to reflect Australia's cultural diversity in their activities and practices.

Published June 1991
The Studio in Deer Park
Feature
Paul Borg

Paul Borg, an artist of Maltese origin, speaks of his unusual working arrangements.

Published June 1991
Theatre Oneiron Crosses Cultural Bridges
Feature
Fotis Kapetopoulos

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.

Published June 1991
Under the Southern Cross
Feature
Anita Aarons

Exhibition Review Under the Southern Cross (survey of Aboriginal Art) Noosa Regional Gallery December - January 1991

Published June 1991
Understanding/Misunderstanding
Feature
Jenny Zimmer

A reference to Wittgenstein's Zettel.

Published June 1991
Unpacking My Cultural Bundle
Feature
Xiao-xiong Zhang

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....

Published June 1991
Visions in the South Pacific: The Immigrant Artist: A Twice Told Tale
Feature
Elizabeth Gertsakis

Colonial Ghettoes: the possibilities and limitations of new identity as vision.

Published June 1991

Also In This Issue

Elizabeth Gertsakis
Artist Profile
Elizabeth Gertsakis

Illustration of her current art practice. Includes images of her work 'The Boys in the Band' from 1989.

Published June 1991
Janusz Kozak
Artist Profile
Helen Haralambous

Looks at the art practice of Januzs Kozak, a painter who was born in Poland and who now works and lives in Wollongong.

Published June 1991
Julia Ciccarone
Artist Profile
Julia Ciccarone

The artist writes about her art practice, in particular her preoccupation with the Australian landscape and how people perceive it. Two images are included: 'Secret Self' and 'Blanket' both from 1990.

Published June 1991
Zsuzsa Kollo
Artist Profile
Jane Deeth

Looks at the ceramic works of Zsuzsa Kollo which refer to Pre-historic, Eastern, and Christian works. includes b/w photo.

Published June 1991
Archetypal Strategies
Review
Susan Sheridan

Exhibition Review: Josie Starrs, Margaret Worth, Fay Poole and Barbara Zerbini
Experimental Art Foundation
Adelaide South Australia
June 1990 and touring to regional galleries.

Published June 1991
Emoh Ruo: Homage to the Art of the Home
Review
Andra Kins

Exhibition Review: Paula Hart, Paul O'Connor, Sarah Toohey and friends Crafts Council Gallery
Perth Western Australia
February - March 1991

Published June 1991
Failsafe Opera
Review
Mary-Anne Haddad

Exhibition Review: Performance Installation by Andrew Petrusevics and Chris Gaston
Adelaide Univsersity Union Art Gallery
7 - 21 March 1991

Published June 1991
Festival of Perth Exhibitions
Review
Melissa Harpley

Ehibition Review: Galerie Dusseldorf
Douglas Chambers and The Glick International Collection
Held February - March 1991

Published June 1991
Festival of Perth Visual Arts Conference
Review
Maggie Baxter

Exhibition Review
The Emperor's New Clothes
March 1-3 1991

Published June 1991
Juggling the Roles
Review
Jude Adams

Exhibition Review: An Art and Working Life Project
Hosted by the Working Women's Centre Prospect Gallery
South Australia
March 1991

Published June 1991
Luk Luk Gen!
Review
Barry Craig

Exhibition Review: Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute Adelaide South Australia
November 1990 - June 1991

Published June 1991
Setting an Agenda for the Arts in Tasmania
Review
Sandi Young

Review: State Arts Conference
Tasmanian Arts Industry Council
April 1991
Photographs of delegates to the conference included.

Published June 1991
 
Guildhouse
Mandorla Art Prize
Melbourne Art Fair
City of Unley
Barossa Arts Festival