Daniel Dancer

Daniel Dancer’s work at yesterdays 5 Lands event, prompted some extension of thoughts begun with the Watanobbi post; his is work in which the central conceptual concern is with engendering a transformative experience for participants. The aesthetics of the final production, as art, is important only so far as it gives authenticity and authority to the process.

Terrigal, June, 2007.

Making large scale interventions in the landscape as art, was pioneered by the Land/Earth artists of the 1970s, such as Robert Smithson, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Richard Long etc., and James Turrell, who, like Daniel Dancer, is also interested in the sky, although his Roden Crater Project is infinitely more enduring physically. (Watching video of Daniel photographing his 'drawings' from a plane, also conjured up associations with Smithson who died in similar circumstances – The Icarus myth is a recurring theme in the artists’ psyche).

Daniel Dancer’s projects are concerned with accessing insight (sky sight) through direct bodily experience, possibly reflecting his education in Child Psychology, and do not address themselves to modernist and post-modern, questioning of the of meanings of form, process and theoretical context.

Big Horn Sky, Bishop, CA 2005 - 950 Kids and Teachers.

The form of his imagery is ancient; transcultural. Like many Land Art projects, it raises questions about the phenomenology of perception, which I think have been insufficiently interrogated in contemporary practice. This situation seems to be changing however, as the advent of GoogleWorld, the ready availability of GPS technology, ubiquitous CCTV and the 'Mobile Phone That Ate the World' have opened our eyes anew (while blinding us).
Daniel asks us to understand that we need to see the “Big Picture” if we are to make decisions that will give the world a future. Working often with children, he keeps the message simple, but the cognitive principle is sophisticated – although perhaps more accessible to the imaginative young mind of children (and other playful people). It means that we must reawaken our ability to experience the world from two places at the same time – to experience the material world, earth and body, while seeing the view from above – the “sky sight”.

In April, 2007, the Community Independent School in Pittsboro, North Carolina formed this nearly extinct bird in a pasture near their school with 100 participants and lots of clothes.

This reminds me of what has been told to me about how aboriginal people always live in a geography that is simultaneously the material world, and a “Big Picture” of story and myth by which to “make decisions that will give the world a future".
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
But perhaps this intelligence is an ability we are born with, and sometimes lose, and rather than focusing on surviving the dissonance we could think of a creative synthesis. This seems to me the paradigm Daniel is working with.
The Art for the Sky projects each produce a video for presentation and so live on as representation. They do not critique the Society of the Spectacle as put forward by Debord, although they want to give primacy to the immediate experience – perhaps it is impossible to avoid the S.O.the S. However to some degree it could be argued that many of the threats to the environment that Daniel Dancer seeks to change by resurrecting an holistic ‘living with the world’ are contributed to, if not largely caused by, the alienated, consumer driven S.O.S.
Any ambiguity of the position does not diminish the contribution he makes, anymore than the commercial compromises to the Burning Man event completely negate the power of the experience felt by attendees.

Eyes in the sky - Terrigal.

Perhaps we will see Daniel again, lets hope so – his arriving by balloon would be nice.

And lets hope next time that Gosford is a bit better organised. Preparation looked rather underdone on Saturday, and although Daniel will be presenting the video on Monday (tomorrow), no one knows where.

[Images 2 & 3 above are from Daniel Dancer's web site, Art for the Sky, linked above.]

Watanobbi (Y with a W)

Recently there was the, still to be adequately explained, closure of an exhibition at the Gosford Regional Gallery as a result of complaints to someone in Council, now we have a few individuals taking it upon themselves to have a work of community art, dubbed the big “W”, removed at Watanobbi.

Sharyn Walker has drawn our attention, on The Gosford Times blog, to the derelict condition of the fountain in Burns Place, Gosford (also, no acknowledgement of the artists on the information plaque), the Charles Sturt sculpture in Rumbalara Reserve has been cruelly vandalised, and we all know the saga of the Wondabyne Stones.
It is unfortunate but not uncommon for public art works, and most other things, to be vandalised, and it is understandable that not all individuals in a community will share the same taste in aesthetic matters, but there is a responsibility on the part of civic authorities to respect, protect and nurture the endeavours of artists to enrich the culture of the Central Coast.
If we respect the unique skills and creative abilities that artists contribute to the community, and exhibit their work, or commission them, and by doing so put trust in their artistic integrity, we owe it to them to stand by that commitment.
Controversy is never far away from art in a conservative community, but even so it has been surprising that the work has caused any fuss.

It seems that a local resident, who did not like the big “W”, started a petition to have the poles removed, as reported in the Wyong Shire Sun. In a large community project there will always be a few who feel excluded from the process for some reason, this is almost impossible to avoid given the complexities of social, political and personal characteristics.

So what is it that has riled the resident?

I quote the Wyong Shire Council Press Release:

“Four timber ‘totem poles’, shaped like a W, with a native bird habitat box at the top, is being built near the approach to the town, north of Wyong. It’s part of Watanobbi’s Community Art Project, developed by Wyong Shire Council; the local community centre; residents; schools and a host of local organisations. More than 300 people, under the direction of community artist, Margrete Erling, helped create the habitat boxes, which are decorated to reflect local history, indigenous heritage, and Watanobbi environmental issues. The aim of the community art project is to foster community pride; promote closer relationships between local organisations and schools; and highlight the work of the Watanobbi Community Centre.”




While community art projects are sometimes difficult in terms of process, and questions of authorship and aesthetic control, they can be very powerful tools of community building regardless of what one thinks of the “art” outcome. At the time of writing I do not know about the process from inside the project, but as an artist with over thirty years experience, and a university lecturer in art for about the same period of time, I think the big “W” is a credit to Watanobbi and to its many creators.

I sympathise with someone who has to look at art that they do not appreciate, but if it is really the art that is the problem, I think there is plenty in this work for someone to learn to appreciate and enjoy.

I also sympathise with the 300 or so people who gave their time and creative enthusiasm to the project. Participants in such community art project become emotionally invested in the work they make for others, and it can be cruel to trash their best efforts. It is hard enough for professional artists to endure heartless criticism, no matter how well intentioned, but that is part of their vocation, we need to build esteem not undermine it in community art projects.

I have heard that the placement of the poles is a bit of a conundrum for some, as the configuration is not seen simply as a big “W”, but from certain angles could be an X, a couple of Vs, or maybe something from an “alien” alphabet. I would have thought that this was a dynamically interesting aspect of the work, being a constantly changing tension between potential and resolution, and therefore an interesting metaphor for continuous community development. This flipping between focus and dispersal is an aspect of the mature work of American sculptor David Smith, whose metal sculptures in the 1950s were notable, and now part of the Art History cannon, for the way they set up relationships between the component parts of the works as well as the setting, moderated by the viewer’s trajectory.

Although I have not seen the Watanobbi work yet, the idea of it changing perceptually and in interpretation, as a result of movements by the viewer, would suggest an addition to the mystery and ambiguity that every successful art work needs.

A decision was made to have an art piece, and that is what they got. If they would rather have a conventional sign, and a society governed by the ethics of commerce, profit and prejudice, free from the humanistic values transmitted through culture, good luck to them, they will need it.

Perhaps something similar to a recent work erected in China could be suggested as an alteration to the disgruntled Watanobbi resident.



The 30ft totem, named Sky Pillar, stands at Longwan Shaman Amusement Park in Changchun City, China.
"It is a totem of Shamanistic culture, which originated in this city," says the president of the park, Cheng Weiguang. Shi Lixue, director of the China Folk Culture Association said: "It symbolizes our ancestors' pursuit of happiness and prosperity."

Wollombi

From information received:

Wollombi Valley Arts Council Inc

is pleased to invite entries from all emerging artists of any age, in any medium, to the
2nd EMERGING ARTIST AWARDS
6th to 12th July 2007



First prize $1500
Second prize $750
Under 18s $250

Entry deadline: Friday 29th June 2007.
Details available from their website.

And a reminder that entries for Sculpture in the Vineyards close on June 30th.
See their website via "labels" below.

-and congratulations to the artists and organisers in Wollombi for what they are achieving!!

places of denial and desire.

The electricity is back on at the Back Page!!!

Tomorrow is International Bloomsday and seven artists will be at-large in Gosford on a psychogeographic dérive.
At a time when Debord's ideas about the Society of the Spectacle are under review, it will be interesting to see what eventuates; and what places of denial and desire are encountered.


"I wouldn't start from here"

"and the wilderness is paradise enow"

Buy nothing, get one free

Urban insertion

Buy nothing, get one free, an open-ended cumulative “urban insertion” , part of Click Here, has been running for eight days, 24 hours a day, in Mann street Gosford.

Further live activities and projections are scheduled for next week.

Cows LED back to Mann Street

Brown’s Cows LED back to Mann Street Gosford

An urban screen/performance/public engagement has been corralled in the Imperial Centre Mann Street shop front.
Following on …the Space Between… this installation consists of a changing series of LED texts and performances by Brown’s Cows in collaboration with people in the CBD.
It is part of “Click Here”, a long-term strategy of deploying contemporary art projects in and around the township of Gosford; and configuring Gosford itself as a contemporary art research project.
The electronic signs will be reprogrammed each day, beginning the 23rd of May 2007.

buy nothing, get one free
there is nothing you can’t buy
our loyalty program costs you nothing
nothing beats a good brown cow
we make our art for, and about, nothing
art is nothing to believe in, and nothing is real
no really, its nothing



wander wonder
wonder wander
wander wonder
etc.
art is nothing to believe in
and the cow jumped over the gate

.......to be continued

The balloon goes up.

In the Society of the Spectacle - is resistance possible?
What spaces of resistance will be encountered in Gosford on the 16th.

Odilon Redon
Eye Balloon, 1878

The theoretical formulations presented by Guy Debord in The Society of the Spectacle, take on a new relevance in this age of blogs, surveillance, MySpace, and technically mediated relationships.

CARNICERO Y MANCIO, Antonio
Ascent of the Balloon in the Presence of Charles IV and his Court. c. 1783

“If there's a "surveillance society" or a "society of the spectacle", I would submit that it's about informatics, and not primarily about the visual spectacle. These artifacts above are only a few instances that indicate how Things that can perform identity surveillance, tracking, tagging and wrangle some database informatics are what matter nowadays.” research.techkwondo.com/blog/julian/193


Debord traces the development of a modern society in which "All that was once directly lived has become mere representation." Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as "the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing." This condition in which authentic social life has been replaced with its image represents, according to Debord, that "historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life." The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people, in which passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity. "The spectacle is not a collection of images," Debord writes. "rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images."
(Wikipedia)


Ours is a world of Biennales, Art Prizes, Blockbuster Touring Shows and Festivals in which art is seen by many as an industry that provides entertainment services and boosts tourism; where its support is premised on its audience generating quality.

Art in the Gosford region will have a short life if it is based on a festival (spectacle) led “recovery”. It requires commitment to a creator based development rather than a secondary creative Industries strategy, which depends on the essential creator (artist) environment.


In describing the development of the Society of the Spectacle, Matt Kavanagh of McGill University writes:
“We live in the society of the spectacle. In the era of blogs, 24-hour news channels, and the instant celebrity of reality television, this probably goes without saying. But what does it really mean? Contrary to the list just enumerated, the society of the spectacle is not of recent invention, nor is it limited to pop culture. Instead "the spectacle" serves as a shorthand description for structural transformations in advanced capitalist societies during the post-1945 era. We might think of this as a broad shift from the factory-based industrial system of the early part of the twentieth century to the immaterial economy of today. Manufacturing has been replaced by service work and the trades have given way to symbolic labour (journalists, bureaucrats, academics) as the prevailing face of the middle-class. The key to this realignment is the increasing mediatization of society.

Most recently, the rise of the “Creative Class” as an economic force, and rapid promotion of the “Creative Industries” globally, together with knowledge-based enterprises reinforces Debord’s analysis.

What goes up...

Sakiko Yamaoka - New Work

New work by Sakiko Yamaoka.
As you might know Sakiko was a contributing artist to the recent Gosford project …the Space Between…
This new work “We are elegant” was part of Perfurbance #3 in Indonesia, the performance festival directed by Iwan Wijono.

"The photo is my performance-work in the cemetery with village people and some artists participated in the festival."

“Perfurbance art Festival is a performance art festival on public spaces referring to growths of urbanized society and its complication as an effort to understand a dialectical of its cause and effect. Hopefully, the festival will allow society to understand and anticipate the negativity of urbanization growth, which certainly has impacts on our growing society and environment.
When earthquake took place on Jogjakarta and Central Java last May 27, 2006, artists have joined volunteers in gathering help for victims.”
- mahatma anto

Iwan Wijono performs internationally as well as in Indonesia. He contributed to the Eco Poetics Symposium, organized by Synapse Art Initiatives, held at Somersby in 1998, as did Sakiko.

On that occasion, at a time of political turmoil in Indonesia his work was performed, to his script, by Australian artists.



Performer carrying pole (with bells), Scott Foster.

Gosford dérive

Image by Banksy, London street stencil artist (from artofthestate blog) More of Banksy at his site.





Further to the renewed interest in the Situationists and their contribution to methods pertinent to the circumstances facing artists now, is a post by Shawn Micallef, on Spacing Wire, a Toronto urban issues site, about his experiences wandering the city of Dublin. Although not writing specifically about art, he makes a link between Joyce's litterary work and the idea of the dérive.


"I was told to look out for the feet and arrows above, as they are there to evoke Leopold Bloom wandering around the city in Ulysses."

Spacing Wire also has a sample of Toronto urban intervention art.

More "walking" projects can be found on the Walking in Place site including
A PERIPATETIC INVESTIGATION OF PLACE

It seems at this time that there is a great deal of interest by artists, particularly in New York, with the art of lived-space and of reclaiming the "commons" through live interventions. Creative Time has a long history of projects of this kind. Example are two projects scheduled for the near future, Situational Drive: Complexities of Public Sphere Engagement (Conference), and Six Actions for New York City, including work by Spartacus Chetwynd who is currently showing at Artspace in Sydney.

A meeting to talk over aspects of the June 16th wander in Gosford, will be held soon.

Gosford Bloomsday dérive

Caution: Cows loose in Gosford 16th June, 2007.

Brown’s cows Art Projects will be coordinating a dérive in Gosford for Bloomsday 2007.

Just time to brush up on the Situationists and a quick read of Ulysses.

For some background information about Guy Debord and the dérive check backpagefree.blogspot.com/search/label/Space

Anyone interested in a bit of psych-geographical mapping of Gosford, is welcome. Email your interest to be a part, and watch this space for news.

In the Vineyards '07

Received from Tara Morelos:

EXHIBITION OPPORTUNITY IN THE HUNTER VALLEY
SCULPTURE IN THE VINEYARDS

"I would like to invite you to have a look at last years exhibition by visiting the blog address above (SCULPTURE IN THE VINEYARDS), and consider submitting a proposal for the 2007 exhibition.
Please read the attached artist info. (if you have trouble downloading the file, let me know)"
[Ed. this is available on the Sculpture in the Vineyards blog. Click on image first to enlarge before moving to desktop, or print from blog]

Detail of '06 work by Holly Williams

"The Exhibition will be held across the three wineries:

Undercliff winery
Stonehurst Cedar Creek
Millbrook Estate

Continuing on from the success of last year, we will be having another great opening at the Wollombi Cultural Centre with 'Sculpture in the Expanded Field' (cheers Rosalind Krauss)... Sculpture/performance and installation... A small sculpture show will be launched along side the larger Vineyards exhibition. Projection artist Cindi Drennan will be presenting an expanded version of her work 'Voice of Light' with an extra performative component. We are also looking for proposals from performers to produce site specific performance work to complement 'Voice of Light' creating a full evening program.

As part of an ongoing thank you to the creative efforts of vineyards artists, we are negotiating a midweek/weekend for two for participating artists to take at their leisure, plus extend an invitation to attend a special artist dinner/lunch - date yet to be confirmed.

I do hope you can be part of this years exhibition and look forward to hearing from you. Please pass this information on to others you think may also be interested."

Regards
Tara Morelos - curator
0403 469 753

Spaces and Places

As some of you will know, Gosford Council is in the process of preparing a report for a “Cultural Spaces and Places Framework”.

Gordon Matta-Clark

Here at the Back Page we continue to push for resources to support Contemporary Art, an obvious need to all familiar with the local situation.
We consider that Council must take up the challenge of providing material encouragement for this sometimes problematic area of cultural practice, not only for what it means to be part of an historic enterprise of cultural enrichment, but also in terms of developing a vision for regional identity.
We have an opportunity to create a unique contemporary art milieu here, but it cannot be done well except in partnership with those who have the resources to match what is available in other cities and regions; this is not only in terms of “spaces and places”, but also in personnel and policy.


If you have any issues in regard to “Spaces and Places”; any opinions, suggestions, views, lists of priorities, etc., you are welcome to email them to the Back Page and I will make sure they are included in the process that will produce the report to Council.

Please email to reach me by the end of the 23rd of April.

"Changling" closed, Mayor's response.

eO has received a response from the Mayor of Gosford, Laurie Maher, to questions arising from the cancellation of an exhibition at the Regional Gallery. For those of you concerned about how the decision was made, check it out.
The statement is the usual public relations spin, and does not address the questions of policy and procedure that need to be made transparent.
Mayor Maher says the closure was "an attempt by Gosford City Council to ensure the works would not be trivialised as a consequence of the articles that appeared in the papers and the public comments which referred to the works being child pornography". So it would appear that exhibitions can be closed if opinions in the press might "trivialise" presented works. Methinks it is time to hang up the old beret.

Alexander McAllister Award

In an increasingly individualised world structured on competitive and adversarial ideologies, it seems the art-world is becoming complicit, rather than resisting and maintaining independence from the industry/consumer/entertainment model.
What we are seeing is more art prizes and competitions, fewer paths to practice that do not pass the art managerial gate-keepers, greater focus on star status in international (or local) art circuses, art valued chiefly as a community development tool and as a catalyst for economic growth in the so called “creative” industries.
While this is what we are SEEING, there are many artists, groups and networks, with practices outside the prevailing orthodoxy, whose premises for work exclude them from both public largess and public discussion.
It continues to be vital for this work to have a “presence” as we negotiate our current understandings and consider options for the future. Not just a seat at the table, but a role in creating it.

As we enter the competitive grant application season, and experience the pressure to tailor our practice to "guidelines”, we might think of Alexander McAllister.

Following is an extract from Circa Art Magazine.

"The 1986 Alexander McAllister Memorial Award for Greatness

Call for Submissions
The Committee of the Alexander McAllister Memorial Award seeks submissions from suitably disqualified Artists for The 1986 Alexander McAllister Award For Greatness. The McAllister Award for Greatness is awarded on an annual basis to an Artist who, in the previous year, displayed the utmost fortitude, resilience, and audacity of vision in their desire to resist the forces of mediocrity, banality, and officialdom. The successful applicant will have showcased the highest level of passion and ferocity in respect of a creatively defiant submission, which they must have deliberately failed, in the previous year, to obtain. No material reward or financial gain attaches to the McAllister Award; it consists solely of affection and admiration bestowed in the spirit of its founder, the late Alexander McAllister.
Successful candidates will have resisted bravely the urge to succeed, borne their ensuing failure stoically, seeing in the failure to gain disingenuous offers of financial nourishment an opportunity to subvert the cultural hierarchy and elevate premeditated failure to the art form it is capable of being.

Submission Guidelines:
* The Award is made retrospectively and on an annual basis. It is open to all artists who, in the previous year, have failed in an attempt to obtain a major grant or award. Submitters are asked to familiarise themselves with previous Award holders and acquaint themselves with the high standards of failure expected in terms of originality, contempt for bureaucracy, and contribution to the field of artistic autonomy.
* Submissions can be in any style or format but must be combative in nature, degenerate in character, and sincerely made.
* All failures must be in respect of officially recognised grants or awards; unsuccessful submissions to unrecognised bodies will not be considered. Proof of application should be included with submissions. Shortlistings are accepted and encouraged as this further subverts official power structures.
* The Award holder's laurel wreath must be returned after a period of one year. Limited edition, plastic replicas are available to all submitters; a modest contribution to cover overheads is encouraged but not compulsory.
* Submitters may freely contact committee members to discuss proposals, receive tips and generally converse in a friendly and civilised manner.
* Deadline for submissions is 31st December 1985. Send to: McAllister Memorial Award, Greatness House, 31 West Great George's Street, Dublin 1, Ireland.

Previous McAllister Award Winners
1982 - Amanda Pentuply for her loss of a 1981 grant of £750. The convoluted and at times dazzling array of interconnected references and recommendations in Bias impressed the Adjudicating Panel immensely. Defiantly titled, meticulously documented, this was a virtuoso display of partiality. Pentuply's in-depth exposition of pedagogy, her detailed elucidation of hierarchal fidelity in the polluted marriage of career advancement and capital capture laid down a marker for future failures.
1983 - The Award went to submissions stalwart Constance Slacklustre. Never short-listed for an official grant or award, probably never even considered, the Panel gave her the Award in recognition of the quality and longevity of her despair. In a decade and a half of failure, amounting to losses in the region of £10,000, she missed yet again, in 1982, an award of £1,000 and was cited by the committee "for her loyalty to loss...her commitment to all things redundant." Her many years toiling in the wilderness of bureaucracy were "a baroque music of repetition, an inspiring and unique voice in a deafening jungle of achievement...a poignant and unanswered counterpoint." Something she never failed to deliver, year after year, was her devotional mantra Routine bereavement.”

More winners, full text and details about Alexander can be found on the CIRCA site.

Good luck with your submissions!

Taking the Cake

Performance with Sponge Cake

Rosita Holmes "takes the cake" at the Emerging exhibition at the Gosford Regional Gallery.

The other artists who are exhibiting, Victoria Baker, Sarah Cockroft, Amelia Disspain, Janis, Kasane Low, Izabela Pluta, Juke Shelly and Emma White, will join Rosita to talk about their work at the Gallery at 6pm on the 18th of April. (Exhibition runs until the 20th of May)

Re-VIEW

There was a good crowd at the Newview Gallery in Newtown last Thursday for the opening of the eO group exhibition Re-VIEW. The concept of “boxed” art was developed by Sharyn Walker, Betty Saez, Fiona Doyle and the participating artists from the Central Coast.

The balloon goes up

How to display a flying dragon, from Johann Kestler, Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis, p. 247

The “art box” as a form has an established pedigree, with precursors in the Cabinet of Curiosities of the 17th Century. Examples being those made by Ole Worm and Athanasius Kircher, whose collections of strangely juxtaposed artefacts were studies of the prescientific material and philosophical understanding of their day.
Interestingly, Kircher is the inspiration for a quirky blog, which recently posted items about anthropodermic bibliopegy (or the practice of binding books in human skin), albino koalas and Esperanto horror films.

In the 20th Century, the “art box” was most often concerned with the psyche and identity, reflecting the powerful role psychology has had in our understanding of experience since Freud.

Duchamp’s concept of the “Ready Made” haunts many artists’ boxes. His Green Box (1934), a compilation of papers, images, and handwritten notes on the Large Glass, while referencing art practice, as do all choices of form, also embodies contradiction and multiple meaning; dilemmas which are at the heart of individual psychology.
For Joseph Cornell (who assisted Duchamp in the manufacture of some of his boîtes), the box became the central form and process of his entire oeuvre. Cornell’s work often incorporated surreal dream-like juxtapositions.
Robert Rauschenberg is another artist who found the box a useful form and his approach, as with the use of materials by Duchamp and Cornell, is also echoed in some of the works in Re-VIEW. Rauchenberg used the box to give personal significance to a jumble of common objects and materials. He described them as an “unpacking” of materials in contrast with Cornell’s delicate “packing” of objects in his box constructions.
The works in Re-VIEW could be said to be “unpackings” of inner worlds; worlds of memory, nostalgia, desire and existential emotion. Congratulations to all who contributed.

Elsewhere:



"Processual Minimalism” - a colony of forest ants constructing a hill. By Klaus Mosettig. via Tom Moody

Ant angst in a box.

Hildegard Art Prize

Received from Meredith Brice.

Dr Pam Johnston has been announced as the recipient of The Inaugural Hildegard Art Prize for Women at the CHRIST CHURCH contemporary art space Gosford. She will take up the award of a two week long Artist-in-Residence at the Christ Church site, 3 Mann Street Gosford, followed by a two week exhibition at the conclusion of the residency. (Dates to be announced.)




Pam Johnston has been active in the women's movement as well as in Aboriginal and prison issues for many years. She is a visual artist, activist, community artist, lecturer and author, and has won the International Women's Day Women's Electoral Lobby Edna Ryan Award for services to her local community, and the Women in Art Fellowship from the New South Wales Ministry for the Arts. Dr. Johnston obtained her Ph.D at the University of Wollongong,the first Aboriginal person to do so. Creatively Johnston seeks to explore the inner sense of how humanity gives life meaning, particularly after devastation, trauma and death.
She has exhibited extensively; the Gandangarra mosaic in Macquarie Street, Liverpool in the Sydney area, is perhaps her most well known work.

We have had to edit down the substantial CV supplied, but further information is available from Meredith Brice at: merrybrice@hotmail.com

Election and Beyond

Congratulations to the successful candidates in the state election.
We in the arts community look forward to working with you to advance circumstances for a vitalised contemporary art milieu on the Central Coast.

Particular thanks to grant McBride for articulating his vision for this agenda prior to the 24th and to Marie Andrews for her committed response to needs in this area in the past. As the member for Gosford I am sure she will be central to achieving the communities objectives as the “City” plan is negotiated.

Integration of art (and the opportunities for new perspectives that it offers) into the spaces places and processes of the town, needs to be understood as fundamental. Art will not achieve its potential if it is considered a peripheral life-style accoutrement or part of the entertainment industry.

Finding a place for art in the city.
Some traditional approaches:

Stranded villa to be demolished
A Chinese court has ordered that a villa left isolated in the middle of a man-made 30ft pit be bulldozed within three days.
Re-blogged from ANANOVA

»Under Heaven« (9m Tree with treehouse on 45 m high Stedelijk museum) by Leonard van Munster.
Re-blogged from VVORK

Claimate Change Coalition

Message received from a few artists who were at Gosford for the Dawn Light Symposium (Alison Clouston & Boyd, and Margaret Roberts).
While it is not about Arts Policy, I will post it on their behalf as received.

Dear all,
we (Alison and Boyd) are making a postal vote so have the upper house ballot papers.
Have found that Group F is the Climate Change Coalition, not listed
on the form as such because they are not a political Party.
If elected they intend to be proactive on Climate Change.
On other policies they will take a conscience vote.
They have no preference deal with other parties.

Arts Policy - Labor and Liberal

Arts Policy wrap.



It is disappointing that the Liberal and Labor candidates for the electorate of Gosford have not offered us an opportunity to consider their art and culture policies before the March 24th election.

This is not only a discourtesy to the many constituents that are involved in the arts at a professional and community level, but indicates a low ranking in these candidate’s priorities for the cultural sector.

It also indicates that the art community has much to do to educate those who would represent us.

Perhaps it is not surprising that the major parties, whose campaigns are so tightly managed and “presidential” were the ones whose candidates adhered so strongly to the script. A check of the Labor and Liberal websites could find no arts policy on either.

Which makes the “Policy” contribution by Grant McBride all the more appreciated, both as a demonstration of responsiveness to constituent initiatives and as a commitment to the development of dialogue about the future of art and culture on the Central Coast. Considerable time and effort was put into preparing and tailoring his policy statement for the region. We hope his "policy" will be read by many in his electorate.

Grant however is not a candidate in the Gosford electorate, which was our focus.

Debra Wales, Independent, stated honestly her limited acquaintance with art and culture matters, but indicated a willingness to respond to issues raised by any constituents. Her courtesy in responding to our invitation is also much appreciated.

Hillary Morris, Greens, produced a thoroughly researched policy in terms of local priorities, as identified in the Vision 2025 Council document, and clear support for freedom of artistic expression. We respect and appreciate the efficiency with which she responded to the invitation to present her policy.
It is also significant to note that the Greens alone have a detailed Arts Policy on their website.
Of the candidates in the Gosford electorate, Hillary has given us the most comprehensive policy to consider, and a clear indication of her commitment to the future development of art and culture for the community.

A personal note on the recalcitrant candidates: Without a statement we can only rely on personal observations. Chris Holstein has been a visible presence at many gallery openings and other cultural occasions. On the Labor website it states: “As Chairman of the Building Committee (Gosford Council), Chris has initiated the building of Peninsula Leisure Centre, Central Coast Stadium, Gosford Regional Gallery and Niagara Park Sports Stadium.”
Marie Andrews, in the old electorate of Peats, has a reputation as being responsive to the electorate and a hard and dedicated worker. She made effective representation to Bob Carr (then Premier and Minister for the Arts) when attempts were being made to establish a contemporary art centre at Mt. Penang.
Their silence on this occasion is cause for disappointment.

We will be running this invitation to candidates to present Art and Culture policies in all future elections, so the task now is to work with them to raise the profile of art and culture in the region, and to ensure that we have policies that include new genres of emerging practice.

Ed.