Session One – The Climate of ARI’s: Politics and the Environment
This discussion will focus on the space in which Artist-run initiatives in Queensland have evolved and the impact that our unique climate has had on local visual arts culture.
Brisbane was once said to be a cultural backwater, as the graffiti on the South Bank cultural centre development boarding once said ‘95% of artists leave Brisbane, Why don’t you?’. This panel looks at how ARIs and emerging artists are responding to the political climate and the sub-tropical climate of Brisbane. How to artists respond to the environment? How had the subtropical design inform the types of ARIs that have existed in Brisbane? Tracing ARI’s from Queensland’s 1980’s and 1990’s this panel will discuss the relevance of, political and creative economies that exist within ARI’s.
Chair: Ellie Buttrose (QAGOMA Associate Curator, Contemporary International Art)
Panellists: Andrew McNamara (QUT Professor Visual Arts), Carl Dempster (ARI Patron Extraordinaire), Caitlin Franzmann (Artist and LEVEL Ari Member)
Session Two – The Future of ARI’s: Problems and Political Concepts
This discussion will focus on the the political evolution in artist groups, and interrogate the future development of ARI’s and visual culture in Brisbane and wider Australia.
Associate with historical groups like the Viennese Secessionists, Salon De Refusees, and the Australian Heidelberg group ARI’s have developed out of a need for artists to work collectively, make art and exhibit art outside of the institutional confines that often restrict and commercialise artistic practices. How does the saturation of the emerging artist culture affect their related political movements? What has influenced the political climate in Brisbane?
Chair: Amelia Barikin (UQ Lecturer in Art History, University of Queensland)
Panellists: Maria Miranda (Artist and DECRA Research Fellow at VCA), Gordon Hookey (Artist and member of proppaNOW and Boomali), Courtney Pederson (QUT Head/Senior Lecturer of Visual Arts, and co-Director of LEVEL) and Sebastian Moody (Artist and member to multiple ARI’s).
Presented by Corflute
