Knowledge + Dialogue + Exchange: Remapping Cultural Globalism From The South
"The schism between tradition and modernity;
between the local and the international. and
theory and practice continue to go unassessed
within the international art framework, primarily
due to a misunderstanding of the notion 'contemporary' itself."
Lu Jie speaking at the 2004 Res Artis Conference
For six days in August 2004, eighty international delegates from over sixty cultural residency centres descended on Sydney and Melbourne for the 2004 Res Artis Conference . This was the first time in Res Artis' eleven-year history that delegates had convened in the Southern Hemisphere, and the event was structured around the increasingly acknowledged notion that the cultures of the once-marginalised South are today redefining and transforming the artistic and intellectual worlds of the centre.1 Speakers from China, Singapore, Taiwan, The Philippines and Australia were invited to examine rigorously the exchanges and developments in contemporary art within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region. The forum was complimented by a dynamic artistic program that actively promoted Australia's artists, innovative practices and multi-disciplinary cultural infrastructure to a diverse and influential international audience, many of whom reside in the region under analysis.
The International Association of Residential Arts Centres (Res Artis) is a global, inter-disciplinary network of residential arts centres and cultural organisations that facilitate artist exchanges. Its membership ranges from formal, well-funded government organisations to grassroots artist-run-initiatives, with visual artists, curators, writers, musicians and composers, dancers, performance artists, sound artists and new-media artists all supported by and within its network. Res Artis' primary objective is to encourage international artist exchanges and to promote an understanding of their catalytic role in the development of art and ideas in the contemporary world. It seeks to foster international connectedness beyond political... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline