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Like many others, at the time of lan Burn's death I was working on a project in which he had agreed to participate, and to which his ideas and work were pivotal. To hear of his death while immersed in responding to his ideas was like suddenly being cut loose from an anchor, losing the point of reference to which one could reliably return. And it was not only a point of reference in relation to ideas, it was a barometer of integrity, of lack of ego, of how one could be involved in artistic life in a way that had real, substantial value in human terms. He was both a mentor and a friend , and his loss is irreplaceable.
Ian came to Townsville in late 1992 to run a critical writing workshop at Umbrella Studio, and r'e all fell for him in a big way. On a recent visit to Townsville I spoke with many of the people who had participated in the workshop, and it was clear that the sense of loss everyone felt was disproportionate to the time we had known him. How was it that a group of such disparate individuals each felt that he had provided them with something unique, and felt his loss at such a personal level?
His ideas were wonderful-they were complex, challenging and subversive, they opened up the possibility that our position on the outskirts of contemporary discourse was potentially a position of strength rather than weakness. They suggested ways of seeing through the structures with which we were dealing, and engaging with them on our own terms. His putting together of contradictory systems, in order to create a vulnerable... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline