HOME TOWN: Artist and community ambition on an international stage
An Artsource and UWA Cultural Precinct Symposium
4 November 2017
HOME TOWN brings together internationally-renowned Australian artists and curators in this investigative symposium, exploring the relationship between artists and communities in the realisation of ambitious site-specific artworks.
It considers existing international and local projects; their history, impact and significance for local communities. The discussion will consider artist driven projects and the paradox of permanence for art in a shifting cultural context. The day also covers the local/global nexus and art experiences made extraordinary through the agency of communities.
Speakers: Gary Dufour (Perth, WA), Margaret Moore (Perth, WA), Lisa Roet (Melbourne, VIC), James Angus (New York, USA), Ian Strange (New York, USA), Anne Loxley (Sydney, NSW), Jonathon Kimberley (Hobart, TAS), Curtis Taylor (Western Desert, WA), Tess Maunder (Brisbane, QLD).
Home Town is presented by High Tide for the Fremantle Festival.
Supporters
Artsource and UWA Cultural Precinct would like to thank the Ian Potter Foundation, The University of Notre Dame, Quest Fremantle and the City of Fremantle for their generous support of Home Town.
About The Ian Potter Foundation
The Ian Potter Foundation is one of Australia’s major philanthropic foundations. The Foundation makes grants nationally to support charitable organisations working to benefit the community across a wide range of sectors including the arts, environment, science, medical research, education and community wellbeing. The Ian Potter Foundation aims to support and promote a healthy, vibrant and fair community for the benefit of all Australians. More >
About High Tide
High Tide is the first incarnation of the Fremantle Biennale, a unique event, hosting the best in site-responsive art. Situated in new and found sites around the west end of Fremantle, High Tide presents invited local and international artists who respond to and work with the rich landscape that is the tapestry of Fremantle. 28 October to 12 November 2017. More >
About Fremantle Festival
Fremantle Festival is a major celebration of Fremantle, its people and culture. The boutique ten-day Festival presents high quality and thought-provoking ticketed and free shows with a diverse program of music, comedy, performance, visual arts and talks. Centred around the festival hub at the Fremantle Town Hall and incorporating selected key venues such as the Fremantle Arts Centre, the ten-day festival presents a range of high quality and thought provoking ticketed and free shows. Fremantle Festival runs Friday 27 October to Sunday 5 November 2017. More >
,.aspx?width=171&height=260 "Lena Nyadbi, Dayiwul Lirlmim (Barramundi Scales), 2012. Rooftop installation, Musée du quay Branly, Paris. Image courtesy of Jonathan Kimberley.")
Artsource Magazine
Program
HOME TOWN
Artist and community ambition on an international stage
9.00am to 5.00pm Saturday 4 Nov 2017 (8.30am registration)
Tannock Hall of Education, The University of Notre Dame, 19 Mouat Street, Fremantle, WA 6160.
8.30am Registration
9.00am to 9.15am Welcome and Introductions
9.20am to 9.45am Gary Dufour: Engaging with Publics
Gary Dufour - Adjunct Associate Professor, UWA, Perth, WA.
The history, significance and impact of public works resonates over decades; some through the maintenance and care of installations and objects, and others by becoming part of local oral histories shared by communities long after the ‘objects’ depart. Gary Dufour discusses the fostering of interaction and engagement between artists and communities in several international projects from 1980 to the present, from artists Krzyztof Wodiczko, Suzanne Lacy, Jochen Gerz, Nettie Wild, Antony Gormley, Karyn Olivier, Do Ho Suh, Kara Walker and Gustavo Artigas.
Session 1: Public Interventions: From Local to International Ambition
9.50am to 10.20am Ian Strange: Outside the Studio
Ian Strange – Artist, New York, USA.
Ian Strange’s presentation focuses on recent site specific projects created in suburbs and communities in New Zealand, USA, Poland and Australia. Discussing the considerations for working outside the studio and navigating working in communities in crisis, he looks at how artist ambition can align with the politics and economics of a community.
10.25am to 10.55am James Angus: Built Unbuilt Unbuildable
James Angus – Artist, New York, USA.
James Angus discusses the evolution of his recent work, focusing on what new definitions of objecthood might look like in the twenty-first century. The presentation also touches on James’ experience working internationally on large scale permanent works and site specific projects.
10.55am to 11.10am Morning Tea
11.15am to 11.45am Lisa Roet: Golden Monkey and the Ripple Effect
Lisa Roet – Artist, Melbourne, VIC.
Exploring the staging of large scale public interventions and their international diplomatic possibilities, this presentation covers the artist's relationship to the ambitions of community and the cultural specificity of symbols in a creative context. Lisa Roet reflects on her recent projects in Chengdu, exhibiting outside Australia and the impact of relationships built between Australia and China.
11.50am to 12.30pm Panel Discussion
This discussion covers local as well as international approaches to site specific art, and the paradox of permanence for public interventions as the contexts around them shift. Speakers discuss modes of practice and management of sites, as well as offering insight into their creative process; what impact place has on the process and how they arrive at the completed work. The discussion encompasses working with the unintended consequences of town planning, movement of people, community regeneration and how work can be translated, understood or misunderstood in different contexts. The emphasis is on the relationship of the artist to the project and how the artist’s ambition aligns with the politics and economics of a community.
Margaret Moore - Independent Curator, Writer & Contemporary Art Consultant, Perth, WA.
Lisa Roet – Artist, Melbourne, VIC.
James Angus – Artist, New York, USA.
Ian Strange – Artist, New York, USA.
12.30pm to 12.45pm Q&A
12.45pm to 1.35pm Lunch
Session 2: Ambition and Collective Experience: Striking a Balance
1.40pm – 2.10pm Anne Loxley: Exchange and Relevance in Socially Engaged Practice
Anne Loxley - PIAF Visual Arts Coordinator & Senior Curator, C3West MCA, Sydney, NSW.
A globally bourgeoning area of contemporary art, socially engaged practice is especially powerful when it addresses current issues and is predicated on genuine exchange. In this context, curator Anne Loxley discusses recent socially-engaged art projects in Australia. These include the MCA’s C3West’s initiatives with Blacktown Arts addressing the Blacktown Native Institution in Sydney, a nationally touring performance project by Nat Randall, The Second Woman, and Lara Thoms’ and Snapcat’s Before the Siren, created in 2017 for the Perth Festival.
2.15pm – 2.45pm Jonathan Kimberley: From Contemplation to Collaboration
Jonathan Kimberley – Artist, Curator & Director GASP, Hobart, TAS.
Global intercultural contemporaneity can be a difficult mode of existence to inhabit. Reconciling the convergence of diverse international artistic traditions that are breaking with outmoded timelines in meaningful ways is arguably the central artistic challenge that defines our age. At first glance, displacing the provincialist bind is inescapable when it comes to Australian projects engaged at the local-global nexus; yet for what reason do we continue to contemplate from Australia such a dominant cultural desire to map our perceived provincial limitations, when we all live together within one of the most compelling and diverse local-international continents on the planet? Jonathan Kimberley shares his experience of the shift from contemplation to collaboration within the local-international context that can dissolve the provincialist bind, exploring the nub of the questions raised in striking a balance through four recent projects.
2.50pm to 3.20pm Tess Maunder: New Propositions on Curatorial Practice: the 11th Shanghai Biennale
Tess Maunder – Independent Curator, Art Critic & Researcher Working Internationally, Brisbane, QLD.
Both the overarching curatorial premise and the actual methodologies employed within the 11th Shanghai Biennale: Why Not Ask Again: Arguments, Counter-arguments, and Stories, 2017 demonstrate the project's capacity to be read as a case study for shifting contemporary curatorial practice within a biennale context. As a member of the curatorial collegiate working alongside Raqs Media Collective, Tess Maunder discusses how the methodologies employed by the 11th Shanghai Biennale curatorial team engaged with both local and international audiences in new, collaborative and engaging ways.
3.20pm to 3.35pm Afternoon Tea
3.40pm to 3.55pm Curtis Taylor: Film Screening: Caatinga – Milirripa: Spinifex Resin – Keeping Everything Together, 2015
Curtis Taylor – Artist, Martu - Western Desert, WA.
This film follows Curtis Taylor’s exchanges with the Pankararu Indigenous communities of Pernambuco, Brazil. When Curtis heard the Pankararu stories of land and culture preservation, he saw many common ties to Martu struggles for land rights and this inspired him to make the new video Caatinga – Milirripa: Spinifex Resin – keeping everything together. This film shows the important and unique practice of a filmmaker making connections between extremely contrasting worlds.
4.00pm to 4.40pm Panel Discussion
This discussion explores the idea of a local/global nexus and how extraordinary art experiences can be grown out of engagement with communities. The discussion covers politics of spectatorship, tension around public space and strategies for negotiating the balance between the social, political and economic values of communities and artists. Speakers explore how projects that are centred in or given a locale can be re-formulated for international audiences; examining how art practice across communities can be localised while maintaining connections to international ambition. Does the concept of community engagement and collaboration when placed alongside site-specific art practice, over-claim or over-promise? The emphasis will be on the communities and their relationship to the project, the management of community interest in relation to artistic integrity and the shifting role of the artist, curator, producer and audience with community-driven projects.
Anne Loxley - PIAF Visual Arts Coordinator & Senior Curator, C3West MCA, Sydney, NSW.
Tess Maunder– Independent Curator, Art Critic & Researcher Working Internationally, Brisbane, QLD.
Jonathan Kimberley – Artist, Curator & Director GASP, Hobart, TAS.
Curtis Taylor – Artist, Martu - Western Desert, WA.
4.40pm to 4.55pm Q&A
5.00pm End