Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 1st September 2008
Attempting to define craft feels something like trying to hunt down an exceptionally speedy chameleon. Heave yourself heroically through the first paces of a crystallising thought and it is gone again, having taken on some new shade to one moment blend seamlessly with another distinct discipline, the next to stand out defiantly against the gamut of contmeporary art and design practice.
The impetus for an examination of contemporary craft was a long-standing personal puzzlement over its position within the wider context of visual arts practice: not merely “what is craft?”, but why are there so many seemingly disparate answers to that question? In brief, and hopefully in aid of enlightenment, the following is an overview of the elusive creature that is craft in 21st century visual culture. (more…)
Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 25th August 2008
Rosemary Cameron is back – if not with a vengeance, then at the very least with its more affable relation.
Cameron, who has just had her three-year tenure as Director of the increasingly robust Melbourne Writers Festival extended to take in the 2009 season, speaks with a kind of refined zeal of this year’s program and the developmental progress of an event relegated by some to runt status when held up against its Adelaide, Brisbane or Sydney counterparts.
In a city known for lovingly preening its cultural plumage, the hard facts of attendance numbers can elicit a faintly ignominious blush. The situation is now both compounded and redeemed by the recent announcement of Melbourne’s successful bid to be UNESCO’s second City of Literature (Edinburgh took out the inaugural spot in 2004). While the announcement can only precipitate growth for the Festival, some seem flustered by having been caught, as one of the nation’s more diminutive players, with their literary pants down. However Cameron, who has been on the Brisbane side of the fence, seems flushed only with optimism for a festival that, rather than di- or re-gressing, appears to be very satisfactorily progressing. (more…)
Filed under: PUBLISHED WORK
Arts Hub Australia, 18th August 2008
Darwin may the Northern Territory’s big daddy but it can rest easy in its sweet 16th spot on Australia’s most populous Statistical Divisions countdown. Given its size, it is one of Australia’s most culturally diverse metropolises and has the highest proportional Indigenous population of any capital city. Perched askew and simmering away at the Top End, it all too readily calls into slavish service the term “cultural melting pot”, yet it is difficult to find a superior option.
The program for the current Darwin Festival (14 – 31 August 2008) is testament to the upside of isolation; travel expenses and a prohibitive climate for much of the year stunt the growth of an arts industry that must instead rely on self-motivation, resourcefulness and, beneficially, collaboration. Perhaps the growth of festivals such as Darwin do not mirror the spangled, stellar trajectories of larger cities, but growth there is – if not up then out, to encompass a community celebrating its own differences and achievements rather than looking ever outwards for inspiration. (more…)
