Opening conference: The 9th Biennale of Sydney
The 9th Biennale of Sydney opened with a two-day conference, entitled Transgressing the Boundaries, held at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales. The conference consisted of sessions led by panels of up to five speakers which included both local and international artists, curators, teachers, and critics. Sessions were titled: "The Postcolonised/the Postcoloniser"; "Marginalisation/Globalisation"; "The Indigenous/ the Migrant"; "Ambivalence/Mimicry"; "Translation/ Assimilation". During each session two or more artists spoke first-hand and in detail about their practice and the social climate in which their work is produced and received. It was difficult to create a space in which to properly receive such culturally divergent practices while simultaneously attempting to articulate the broader theoretical implications and contexts of such practices. It was quite often the artists themselves who were the most successful in making these leaps. It was the last session of the conference, entitled "New Peripheries/Old Centres", which brought to light the promises and pitfalls of the Biennale. This session attempted to critique the rationale of The Boundary Rider (the Biennale's title) through analysis of the promotional image of the Biennale (found on the catalogue cover and other literature). Pat Hoffie (lecturer, Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, and a practising artist) began by describing the glorification of masculinity in the image, claiming that the Boundary Rider is a footloose and fancy-free character which-if intended to stand as a collective representation of the marginalised-disguised those who are truly marginalised in our world.
Sue Rowley (lecturer, Wollongong University and craft theorist) went on to describe the actual historical circumstance of boundary riders, drawing on Furphy's "Such is Life" . She reminded us that boundary riders were outsiders (Aborigines... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline