Regional Arts

SPACE PLAN began in November 1968 with a manifesto, and the members produced work that took on styles of Minimalism. While showing work at civic halls and galleries, the members also actively attempted to organize outdoor exhibitions in and around Tottori City, for example, the Aoshima Island, an islet in the Koyama pond, or the front garden of Jinpukaku, a French Renaissance style residence that dates back to the Meiji era. Noteworthy is the Second Exhibition, which showcased Minimalist works on a grand scale in the Tottori Sand Dunes. Although the group garnered local media attention at the time, their activities were restricted to the Tottori region and therefore never became nationally famous.
How did their style, which stemmed from a modern art movement like Minimalism, evolve in the latter half of the 1960s in the local region of Tottori? This paper examined the group’s activities while tracing the circumstances surrounding the culture of Tottori during the 1960s and the 1970s, and within various historical contexts—the age of youth rebellion, Gutai’s outdoor exhibitions, the open-air sculpture exhibitions of Ube (Yamaguchi) and Suma (Kobe), Fukushima Noriyasu and the Kitashirakawa Art Village in Kyoto, and the development from Minimalism to Post Minimalism.

Multān specializes in the making of traditional footwear called
khussa. A khussa is a leather shoe usually embroidered on the
upper side. The toe of the khussa is round. The design of the
embroidery is traced by cut paper to be later embellished by
craftsmen in factories and workshops or women in villages who
can do embroidery on khussa. Khussas having filigree patterns
have embroidery done with a metallic thread called ṫilla on
specifically red, black, or skin-colored leather. The origin of
shoes is difficult to be traced however it is evident that man
invented shoes to protect himself from threats caused by natural
elements i.e. weather, climate, and rough surfaces. The shoe has
been a protector of human feet for centuries. This paper will
explore the types and varieties of Khussa’s in Multan.

"Artists are peculiar beasts and spirits... No longer are metropolises their Mecca; artists are now descending upon the periphery hosted by members of small communities to create new life and opportunity in their towns via artist residencies, where both artists and hosts orchestrate a durational slow change within the heart of remote Icelandic villages, often rekindling the economies of dwindling hope. In the words of Derrida: " ​ ...we rediscover the mythopoetical virtue (power) of bricolage. In effect, what appears most fascinating in this critical search for a new status of the discourse is the stated abandonment of all reference to a center, to a subject, to a privileged reference, to an origin, or to an absolute arché. " Within bricolage, the origin of perception is recaptured; the centre is disseminated. Authority and hierarchies are subject to distant, contorted imaginations as a previous reality twists into new artistic accounts and documentations conceived from deep in the field. The rebellious act of withdrawal and an international 'elsewhere' ethic contributes to a decentralisation of power within the institutional art world and gives flight to new peripheral centres of infamous activity; with a royal finger to the establishment, the periphery almost feels punk."

n his 1934 book Art as Experience, John Dewey called for the reintegration of art with the processes of everyday life. According to Dewey, since the industrialisation of western society, art has become a compartmentalised sphere set apart from ordinary culture. This thesis asks, 'what might the reintegration of art and life look like, in the early twenty-first century in Australia?'

Utilising a practice-based research approach, I have developed and refined a new method of art practice – bilateral blogging – which works within the rhythms and spaces of everyday life. Inspired by the 'blurring of art and life' carried out by artists
such as Allan Kaprow, the projects developed in this thesis – Bilateral Kellerberrin and Bilateral Petersham – extend twentieth century avant-garde art practice into the existing spaces of Australian neighbourhoods. This thesis shows how artworks like these, comprised of localised social relations, might also begin to document the specific interactive experiences which go into their own making.

I demonstrate that as a form of art practice, blogging can deepen engagement with everyday experience. It can produce a more dialogical relationship between artist and audience, and, importantly, it is able to generate rich documentation of situated experiences. Blogging is thus a research tool with the potential to bring to light aspects of everyday life which normally go unnoticed.

Through close reflection on the processes and outcomes of my own blog artworks, I have also developed a new way of identifying some of the aesthetic qualities of the
experiences from which my relational art projects are made. Building on the work of William James, John Dewey and Allan Kaprow, I propose that attention plays a crucial role in transforming social interactions into aesthetic experience. The method of bilateral blogging developed in this thesis uses attention as a framing device, catalysing seemingly incoherent events into an intelligible, expansive structure.

This thesis thus makes three substantial contributions: a new method for making relational artworks; the production of an experiential document of the particular environments in which these artworks are situated; and a new approach to
understanding the functioning of aesthetic experience. Taken together, these contributions bring a fresh perspective to discussions around the blurring of art and life, and the use of art as a mode of enquiry.

During 2015, by combining the curiosity, inquiry and knowledge that exists in both disciplines, artists and scientists, together with school students, created new video artworks for an exhibition entitled 'Emergence'. The focus was on fostering emerging talent. This case study presentation documents the development and realisation of this workshop and touring exhibition concept by La Luna Youth Arts personnel. In 2016 it brought together participants and exhibition audiences from three regions of Central and Northern Queensland.

This book aims to redefine Australia’s earliest art history by chronicling for the first time the birth of the category "Aboriginal art," tracing the term’s use through published literature in the late eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Susan Lowish reveals how the idea of "Aboriginal art" developed in the European imagination, manifested in early literature, and became a distinct classification with its own criteria and form. Part of the larger story of Aboriginal/European engagement, this book provides a new vision for an Australian art history reconciled with its colonial origins and in recognition of what came before the contemporary phenomena of Aboriginal art.

At last year’s Regional Arts Australia Summit in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Attorney-General George Brandis announced more than A$1 million in funding for regional arts projects across Australia, asserting that regional arts was one of the few areas to be quarantined from budget cuts. But what are “regional” arts, exactly, and why do they matter? Given the widespread usage of the term, you’d think it was clearly understood. But definitions vary considerably.

Os trabalhos de secao tematica Narrativas sobre universalidade na Arte problematizam as relacoes existentes entre o pretenso discurso de uma arte universal, em contraposicao as novas vozes que ate entao nao se viam representadas no sistema das artes: producoes artisticas nao europeias, narrativas nao canonicas, assim como a instauracao da descolonizacao da estetica. O debate aqui provocado almejou alcancar inumeras vias de significacao seja pela problematizacao das colecoes de arte, por producoes artisticas manifestas em outras formas, tempos e lugares distanciados das praticas e saberes convencionados no atelie, bem como pela importância trazida pelo debate entre o regional e universal que pautam as atuais relacoes entre o fenomeno urbano e a cultura.

ABSTRACT
The  dossier  Narratives on universality in the Art  questions  the  relations  between  the proposed discourse of a universal art, in opposition to the new voices that until then were not  represented  by  the  system  of  the  arts:  non-European  artistic  productions noncanonical narratives, as well as the establishment of the decolonization of aesthetics. The  provoked  debate  aimed  to  reach  a  multiplicity  of  means  of  signification  either  by putting in question art collections, by artistic productions manifested in forms, times and
places  far  from  the  practices  and  knowledges  based  in  the  atelier,  as  well  as  by  the importance brought by the debate between the regional and universal which guides the current relations between urban phenomena and culture.
Keywords:  Universality, Non-occidental art, Regional art, Alternative narratives, Non-studio based practices


RESUMO Os trabalhos de seção temática Narrativas sobre universalidade na Arte problematizam as relações existentes entre o pretenso discurso de uma arte universal, em contraposição às novas vozes que até então não se viam representadas no sistema das artes: produções artísticas não europeias, narrativas não canônicas, assim como a instauração da descolonização da estética. O debate aqui provocado almejou alcançar inúmeras vias de significação seja pela problematização das coleções de arte, por produções artísticas manifestas em outras formas, tempos e lugares distanciados das práticas e saberes convencionados no ateliê, bem como pela importância trazida pelo debate entre o regional e universal que pautam as atuais relações entre o fenômeno urbano e a cultura.
Palavras-chave:  Universalidade, Arte não ocidental, Arte regional, Narrativas alternativas, Práticas artísticas não convencionais