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Fremantle Arts Centre Responses - WA Layli Rakhsha, Echo of a Familiar Voice
I was born in Iran and at age 23, I came to Australia. I was neither surprised nor excited, but I felt nervous in terms of where I am, what this place is and how I could know Australia. For that reason, I have constantly seen myself in a “Diasporic Space”. When I talk of ‘Diaspora’ I think of migration and nostalgia caused by this movement. Diaspora is related to migration which may persuade me to question the ‘truth’ of my identity and my culture. Diaspora in addition shows how cultural identity is an affect of history, made manifest through nostalgia or memories and stories. In Australia, I see myself in a ‘new’ space; a space between the space I come from and the space where I am. For the reason of being in this new space, I am in a new position that gives me the possibility to experience something hybrid, something new. To me, the exhibition “Echoes of Home” was about a familiar experience to my own as a migrant person in Australia. In this exhibition I could hear familiar voices, memorable stories and whispered secrets that I can connect them to my own, and feel an essence coming from east that reminds me my memories and tradition from home. I decided to contribute a work as my response to “Echoes of Home”. I started painting on one of my photographs of Australian landscape printed on canvas while I was thinking about the art works in the exhibition and ‘home’. I used one of my favorite Rumi’s poems to express my emotions and represent my ongoing story in Australia:
Layli Rakhsha was born in Tehran-Iran in 1976. She migrated to Western Australia to complete her study in Art while she had her Diploma of Fine Art from Islamic Azad University in 1999. Rakhsha was awarded a “Painting Studio Award” as she completed her Bachelor of Visual Art, at Edith Cowan University in 2004. In 2006, she completed a Masters of Visual Art in the School of Communications and Contemporary Arts at Edith Cowan University. Rakhsha has been in several group exhibitions in Iran and Australia, and had her first solo exhibition at Fremantle Art Centre-Western Australia in December 2006. Her next solo exhibition will be at Seyhoun Art Gallery in Tehran in September 2007. Layli Rakhsha is living and practising art in Perth. Dennis Haskell, Response to Echoes of Home Apart from the fact that the works included come from Asian-Australians, the notes for “Echoes of Home” emphasises three things: the use of craft traditions, “the concept of the artist as an individual”, and “the heterogeneity of culture influences throughout the Asian region”. The idea that the artist is an individual is so obvious that it hardly needs stating, but there is a self-consciousness about it in this exhibition that leads to its mention in the Catalogue’s “Foreword” – “The concept of the artists as individuals … is fundamental to this exhibition” – and in Christine Clark’s introductory essay. It is as if the organisers, having gathered together the artists to represent “Austral-Asian art”, began to worry that the audience would think of them as one conglomerate artist. Heaven knows why! The other two features – the use of craft traditions and heterogeneity – are so clearly evident that a blind viewer could hardly miss them. The range of styles, forms and subjects is marvelous, and one of the exhibition’s great strengths – all the more so, given that the artists are young. The use of craft means that most of the works have backbone – clear structure and design, free of the limp self-indulgence that characterises so much contemporary art. This is one of the most various, exciting collective exhibitions I have seen in recent years, and it makes clear without any notes that the “home” being echoed is a multiple place, that really exists only in the works themselves. The exhibition’s range and depth is all the more important in the context of recent attacks on multiculturalism by the Federal Government and social commentators with a conservative bent. It is cultural interaction that has provided these artists’ inspiration, and Australia is the richer for it. However, the exhibition marks the gap between art and art criticism. The notes sometimes provide very useful biographical and cultural information, but so often when they turn to art interpretation they seem pompous and self-deluded. One of the few works that didn't speak to me is Dadang Christanto’s “The leaves that cry”, a line of rice paper leaves stuck on a wall. Drawing on the artist’s own comments, Peter Denham tells us that these stand for the trees in Java which are witnesses of the 1965-66 massacres when Suharto came to power (the victims included the artist’s father) and that “the white on white of the ceramic and the white of the tears” painted on “represent purity”. Who on earth would perceive any of this without the notes? Who would notice that there were tears at all? (And just as well you wouldn't’t, since tears are such a clichéd way to represent tragedy.) White on white and purity… no, these slightly ragged leaves on the wall look like leaves on a wall. The gap between the commentary and the work appears a number of times: Pamela Mei-Leng See “has used the pigeon as the vehicle to discuss the spread of Western society across the globe” (Elizabeth Bates); “By representing the masks as portraits, Renee So interrogates how people and culture become objectified and idealised through arbitrary, de-contextualised use of imagery that is central to Chinoiserie” (Joanne Besley). More likely, art critique provides rather arbitrary commentary that the artworks themselves cannot encompass. Two things are in operation here: the ambitions of art critics to have visual works do what only language can do, and the widespread denigration of the aesthetic in favour of political and social commentary. The best comment to make on these artworks is to forget most of the commentary and enjoy the works themselves – especially those of Won Seok Kim and Savanhdary Vongpoothorn: they seem the standout individuals to me. Dennis Haskell is Professor of English & Cultural Studies and Co-editor of the magazine Westerly at the University of Western Australia. He is the author of 17 books, including 5 volumes of poetry. His most recent collection, All the Time in the World, was published by Salt in Cambridge, UK in 2006, and he is currently working on a critical anthology of contemporary poetry and prose from South-east Asia. His latest critical book is Beyond Good and Evil? Essays on Literature and Culture in the Asia-Pacific (UWA Press, 2006). CY Hoon, Echoes of Home: Some Reflections “Home”, as noted by the curator of the exhibition, Christine Clarke, in the catalogue, is an often taken-for-granted idea for most people. To them, “home” is a singular and readily identifiable place where one experiences a sence of belonging, security, stability and comfort. Nevertheless, the concept of “home” becomes problematic when talking of people who have multiple places of belongings, such as expatriates, transnationals, migrants, people in exile, and, of course the artists featured in the exhibition. In such cases, it is not clear how people who are physically and spatially dislocated should locate their “home”. To use Madan Sarup’s questions: Is home “where your family is, where you have been brought up? Is it where your parents [or ancestors] are buried? Is home the place from where you have been displaced, or where you are now?” (1994: 94). For some people, there is no simple answer to describe their multiple and complex sense of belonging(s) which, in Trinh Minh-ha’s words, may be “between a here, a there, and an elsewhere” (1994: 9). It can be argued that all places that one might belong to elicit a partial sense of belonging. Hence, the concept of “home” may also be partial. The mobility associated with migration rendered us dependent on our memory to recollect and imagine the homeland. However, memory can be constructed and the homeland can be imagined based on a fixed and frozen past that we choose to remember. The homeland can be romanticised by some and demonised by others, depending on their particular experience and memory. “Echoes of Home” has alerted us to the complexity and multiplicity of home, associated with mobility and memory. Of particular interests to my own research on the Indonesia was Dadang Christanto’s piece on Daun-dawn yang menangis (The leaves that cry). His art is a tribute to those who disappeared in the 1965-66 massacres and a stark reminder of the presence of silent trees which witnessed and wept over the incidents – although like many other acts of violence in Indonesia, perpetrators were never brought to justice. However, Christanto’s piece would seem hopelessly disempowering if one allows only the discourses of violence and victimhood to dictate their impression of Indonesia. No doubt that Indonesia has experienced numerous episodes of state and communal violence; and more recently, natural disasters like the tsunami and earthquakes which caused this land to “weep” (the Indonesia media uses the phrase “Indonesia menangis” or “Indonesia weeps” in their reports of the disasters). We would have missed the point if we assume that Christanto’s piece ended with just weeping. On the contrary, the crying leaves remind us that “like a floral tribute, the sprouting branches and leaves can also be seen as a symbol of continual growth and hope” (Denham 2005: 36). Hopefully, we can look beyond the tears and see the strength and perseverance of the Indonesian people who continue to strive and progress amidst challenges and hardships. References: Chang-Yau Hoon has recently completed his PhD in Asian Studies at the University of Western Australia (UWA). His thesis, entitled “Reconceptualising Ethnic Chinese Identity in Post-Suharto Indonesia”, was awarded a Distinction by the UWA Graduate School of Research in 2007. He currently lectures in Asian Studies and Indonesian at UWA. His publications in 2006 include: “Assimilation, Multiculturalism, Hybridity: The Dilemma of the Ethnic Chinese in Post-Suharto Indonesia”, Asian Ethnicity, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 149-166; “Defining (Multiple) Selves: Reflections on Fieldwork in Jakarta”, Life Writing, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 79-100; and “‘A Hundred Flowers Bloom’: The Re-emergence of the Chinese Press in post-Suharto Indonesia”, in Media and the Chinese Diaspora: Community, Communications and Commerce, Wanning Sun (ed.), Routledge, London and New York, pp. 91-118. Diokno Pasilan, Echoes of Home Christine Clark’s essay on Echoes of Home is a clear definition of her experience and continuing relationship with Asian artists based in Australia. My response to this project is more of an experience as an Asian artist living in Perth, Western Australia who also had to adjust my art practice to a new locality. I feel at “Home” past and present, the past is more of a dream and memory that keeps the spirit alive and the present is to survive and develop relationships within the community. I wish to see more of this type of exhibition with artists visibly present, engaging with the community.
Diokno Pasilan is a self-taught visual artist and musician, who has had numerous group and solo exhibitions abroad and in the Philippines. He was a former ethnic instrumentalist of the popular band Asin, and founder member of Pinikpikan band. Diokno has conducted various workshops including batik-making, handmade paper and community art projects in the Philippines, Paris, Switzerland, and Australia (Brisbane, Perth, Pitjantjatjara community in Amata, South Australia). During the period 1993-1997, he coordinated with the Australian Embassy in Manila by assisting and collaborating with visiting Australian artists who were funded through the Asialink program. In 1998, Diokno undertook formal study in Fine Arts at the W.A. School of Art, Design and Media, Perth, Western Australia. "After graduating in early 2001, I had a desire to return to the Philippines to utilize the knowledge gained during my time of study. My focus was on community art projects. I settled in an area in the town of San Vicente on the island of Palawan to set-up studio space. In meetings with the local community the concept of a “house beautification” project came into being. The timeframe of this project coincided with the annual town fiesta. This process of art-making and involvement with the local community was recognized by the Philippine National Commission on Culture of the Arts (NCCA) and, as a result, in 2003 I was selected with four other artists to represent the region of Luzon, Philippines in a national traveling exhibition. The exhibition was based primarily on how migrant artists engage and integrate themselves in their adapted community." Debbie Rodan, Notes on the viewing of Echoes of Home There were three particular pieces that attracted me for the way they focus on aspects of personal, social and national identity: I was drawn to Jaishree Srinivasan’s exhibit Revision because of the Snakes and Ladders form. From the form and the title, I recognized one of my favourite childhood games, despite the unconventional cylinder shape, size and place where the players land. Srinivasan’s Snakes and Ladders composition, however, is an observation about the role of parameters. Different words were drawn on several cylinders: words used about the conduct and deeds of women, such as gold digger, hysterical, hormonal, neglectful, aggressive, dispassionate, manipulative etc. It is the subject of women’s roles within different societies and cultures that intellectually and emotionally engages me. What drew me to Srinivasan’s composition is that even though women’s roles differ across class, culture and ethnic groups, similar words (when translated into English) are used to describe the conduct and deeds of women who fall foul of spoken and unspoken social boundaries. The image of Keiko Amenomori-Schmeisser’s gold and shadow silk textile kept coming to mind long after I viewed it. The choice of silk seems to be very important here. Silk suggests movement, fluidity, and the possibility of reshaping. Silk is also a strong fabric which makes it durable. On first viewing, colours of Australia on silk seemed unremarkable, although for me it invoked the idea of nation. It is not self-evident the connection between the concept of nation and the silk fabric. I thought about how silk was discovered in the ancient world of what the Europeans called the ‘Far East’, and how nationhood is a product of the modern European world. Nations are not as durable as silk; the colours of the nation are not as steadfast. This is evident in the way that national flags often change colours as a result of national referendums, national upheavals, and national redefinition. Amenomori-Schmeisser’s colours refer more to the landscape of Australia than the idea of nation. Yet landscape is subject to the same meaning-making process in that the meaning of nationhood as well as landscape is contingent on the generation which writes the history. Alwin Reamillo’s ‘shrine to childhood memories’ is one of the pieces I found the most interesting for the way it explores the notion of mixed-identity. Reamillo depicts through the remnants of objects connected to his childhood life, how his Australian-Philippine identity was formed through place and home. Reamillo’s shrine is in reminiscence of Marcel Duchamp’s ‘found objects’—where an object from the everyday is used to provoke discussion about larger more complex concepts. In Duchamp’s case the role of art and the space of the gallery; in Reamillo’s the larger concept in his ‘shrine to childhood memories’ is the role of place and home in identity formation. The exhibits enabled me to think about how personal, social and national identity can be conceptualized in a visual form, and this is what I found most enjoyable about the three pieces. Debbie Rodan lectures in the Media & Cultural Studies stream at Edith Cowan University and is a member of the editorial collective of Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies. She is the author of Identity and Justice: Conflicts, Contradictions and Contingencies (2004) and other publications about the representation of social and cultural identities in various media. She is currently working on examining the recurring discourses within the letters to the editor and how they underpin and ratify certain notions of being ‘Australian’; and an analyse of the ways in which ethnic Hazara refugees from Afghanistan have been (re)presented in two Australian television programmes. Ivan Dougherty Gallery Responses - NSW Thomas J. Berghuis, “Homebound”: Reflections on Echoes of Home in Sydney This response is about pressure and hope, anxiety and anticipation. The deadline has already passed, as I am starting my response to the exhibition “Echoes from Home”. I am distracted. My thoughts are with my family in Amsterdam. The air is filled with the scent of the house where I grew up; the home where I was born. I have often heard the phrase: “home is where the heart is”, but for me “home” has much more to do with embodied senses; with sight, hearing, smelling ... and with touch. For almost seven years I have been traveling between Amsterdam, Sydney, and Beijing - three distinct cities located in three different countries, and situated on three separate continents. To some readers my travels signal mobility, temporality, and being in between spaces; of being, so to speak: “on the move”. Yet, one can also point at moments of stability, permanence, and the continuation of (dis-)placement. Here I have chosen to focus my attention to the phrase “homebound”, which can mean being confined to one's home, as well as being on the way home. Hence, “homebound” can be used as a metaphor to describe the constant flux between placement and displacement in the exhibition “Echoes of Home”; including the (dis-)placement of cultural tradition and modernity; the (dis-)placement of the contemporary evolution of traditional craft; and the (dis-)placement of art practices inside the exhibition space. I visited the exhibition “Echoes of Home” twice over the past two weeks. I must admit that during my first visit I became rather disturbed by the emphasis on cultural identification that confronts the viewer through the category of “recent Austral-Asian art” in the subtitle of the exhibition. Such classification is in danger of replacing cultural, religious, and racial differences with socio-economic and politico-historical categorization. In my view, the subtitle confines the exhibition to some of the more conventional discourses of multiculturalism, instead of making full use of more recent discourses of intercultural exchange that pay greater attention to personalized levels of cultural interaction. In her catalogue essay for the exhibition, Christine Clark states how: “the concept of the artist as individual” is “fundamental” to the exhibition. If this is the case, one could pose the question whether the “unique influences and experiences” of each of the artists featured in “Echoes of Home” is still in need of classifications like “Austral-Asia”, “tradition and modernity”, and “art and craft”? During my second visit to the exhibition I decided to discard many of the above classifications, and to focus my attention to each individual artwork in the exhibition. Thus, I began to realize the underlying visual power of each individual artwork, and their placement inside the exhibition space; some of which are clearly stronger and better placed than others. In particular, I was struck by the installation Journey of patterns (2005) by Humma Mustafa, in which the artist transposes Mehendi - the art of henna painting of the body - onto three silk banners which represent the process of a woman maturing in life, a process alluded to by the circular patterns that become more complex in each of the panels, as well as by the density of the dyed silk that is akin to aging skin. This is an installation that transcends materiality into something that can be sensed, rather than be viewed; as could also be experienced in the two sculptures made out of camphor wood and bronze by Liu Xiaoxian, titled The Couple (2004); as well as the delicate paper-cuts by Pamela Mei-Leng See, in her installation Home to roost (2005). As I was moving through the exhibition during my second visit, I also started to appreciate some of the underlying themes of the exhibition. In particular, I was impressed by the way several of the artists - such as Won Seok Kim and Keiko Amenomori-Scheisser - have become inspired by the landscape of the Australian continent. I was, however, somewhat disappointed by the absence of the installations of Dadang Christanto and Alwin Reamilio (due to the lack of space at the Ivan Dougherty Gallery), which would have enhanced another intricate theme, namely: the relationship between home and the notion of ancestry. Hopefully, the Ivan Dougherty Gallery will soon be offered more room to expand, allowing audiences in Sydney a chance to witness exhibitions like “Echoes of Home” in their entirety. Thomas J. Berghuis is Senior Project Curator/ Senior Researcher with the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and the Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics, College of Fine Arts/ UNSW in Sydney. He completed his PhD dissertation on Performance Art in China at the University of Sydney, following an MA in Sinology at Leiden University (The Netherlands). During the past 10 years he has frequently traveled to China for his research, and from 2003 to 2004 he was a visiting scholar at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. He has also been involved in several curatorial projects, including Associate Curator for the 6th Sharjah International Biennale, U.A.E (2003), Curator for the 1st Dashanzi International Arts Festival at the 798 Factory in Beijing (2004), and Associate Curator for the 3rd Israel Video Art Biennial in Tel Aviv (2006). His writings have been published in various magazines and art publications, including in Art Review UK, Art Asia Pacific, Artlink, Broadsheet, Mesh, positions and RealTime. His book, Performance Art in China, has been published in 2006 with Timezone 8, Hong Kong. Brianna Munting, Response to Echoes of Home The Echoes of Home exhibition provides a mixed response to a very complex subject, the role of identity, cultural heritage and craft based contemporary art practice in art and the wider Australian society. The project is a mixture of successful multi-disciplinary inclusions and ideas that have come at a time when multiculturalism is definitely off the national political agenda. Yet somehow this project falls slightly short of its aims to “represent the complexity and cultural diversity of the region” through a focus on media in the analysis of the works. This creates a position of possible unwillingness to delve below the surface and discuss cultural difference and also the ideological intersections of culture and the politicising role of contemporary art in changing understandings and contemporary narratives. This project is a focus on difference through craft based/culturally diverse practice. It sets a stage of the traditional informing the personal where artistic capabilities become intrinsically linked to the artistic production/medium. However, the conceptual frameworks become lost in the background in the critical analysis and presentation. Whilst the diversity of artist selection is to be congratulated and the inclusion of differing mediums and practices presents a focus on the tactile, the questions on the ideas that underpin the different ways of working and the diverse experiences of diaspora, become lost as it feels like the cultural critiques have been replaced with aesthetics. It is an accessing of contemporary art from the Austral-Asian region through stylised and familiar motifs that are available to different audiences through historical artistic practice. The push to legitimise the role and influence of ‘craft’ on contemporary art may have overshadowed the experience of many global practioners included in this exhibition in addressing issues of stereotypes and exploring the different and important contributions to the Australian socio-political landscape. Issues and experiences of globalisation seem focused on a fusion of past and present yet there is a tension between East and West that has created a divide that is almost unreachable as traditional techniques sit side by side yet appear to remain separate with opposing cultural icons in many of the works. The linkage between craft and art is important but the high standard of works such as Renee So’s and Savanhdary Vongpoothorn’s in themselves emphasizes this link and legitimacy, yet still maintain timely explorations and critiques of the way ‘Asianness’ is conceptualized on both a personal level and within contemporary Australian culture. Renee So’s works manage to fuse the traditional with the contemporary to react against stereotypes by re-appropriating traditional ideas asking the viewer to reassess their own personal paradigms and understandings of cultural labels. The ideas of cultural development and a recognition of cultural diversity are integral issues for contemporary art to continue to address. Artistic practice provides an avenue for the exploration of the positive contributions and understandings of a differing cultural vernaculars that can ultimately and hopefully create a climatic change. Brianna Munting is currently working as the Program Manager at Casula Powerhouse at Liverpool in South West Sydney and has held previous positions at the Asia Australian Art Centre (Gallery 4a). She has a Masters Degree in Art Administration from the College of Fine Art, University of NSW and a Bachelors Degree in Communications (Social Inquiry) from The University of Technology Sydney. Russell Storer, Response to Echoes of Home This exhibition resonated instantly for me, as I had just been working on an exhibition with the Singapore-born, Perth-based artist Matthew Ngui, who has for some years grappled with the question of ‘home’ in his work. Ngui considers home not so much a place as a process under constant negotiation. This is examined in his work through devices such as anamorphic imagery and text, in which coherence and singular meanings are fragmented into multiple points of view. I was reminded of Matthew’s thinking about home in visiting Echoes of Home, which placed an emphasis on how artists of Asian heritage living in Australia may live simultaneously in several ‘homes’, and how this condition, so much a part of the contemporary world, impacts on their work. I thought it was interesting that the exhibition explored the idea of ‘home’ through craft-based practices, with their close connection to the domestic realm. The ways that home is constructed - through community ties, daily rituals and routine, tradition, shared values and aspirations - are suggested by the metalwork, textiles, clothing, pottery and medicinal forms presented here. Yet of course these collective activities have experienced some form of rupture in their translation from one place to another. There is in many of the works an intriguing trace of that rupture - the unconventional uses of materials, the incorporation of elements from western culture, the response to the Australian landscape for example - which is certainly borne out in the artists’ testimonies, helpfully placed on panels nearby and in the accompanying interviews and catalogue. What was refreshing was the emphasis on individual practices rather than the mediums used, particularly as craft was the basis for the exhibition. The old divisions between visual art and craft were broken down somewhat by focusing on other thematics, cutting across genre and enabling rewarding relationships to be made between artists’ works. The elegant, evocative designs of Alistair Trung connected well with Savanhdary Vongpoothorn’s pierced canvases, for example, each drawing on Vietnamese or Laotian references while imparting something new and perhaps yet indefinable. These were two of the most successful presentations for me, suggesting a state of both balance and becoming: of an Australian art that is open and fluid and not mired in ‘identity’, yet grounded in history and a sense of place. While few of the works addressed the idea of home directly, the framework of the exhibition encouraged the viewer to consider how the artists negotiate their particular cultural heritages within a new place. What is brought, what changes, what is left behind. Russell Storer is a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney. He organised the MCA exhibitions Interesting Times: Focus on contemporary Australian art and Situation: Collaborations, Collectives and Artist Networks from Sydney, Singapore and Berlin (both 2005) as well as exhibitions of the work of Ugo Rondinone, Paddy Bedford, Rodney Glick, Matthew Ngui, Kathleen Petyarre, Mathew Jones and Simon Starling. He has written for and edited publications in Australia and internationally, and in 2007 was a visiting curator at documenta 12. Goulburn Regional Art Gallery Responses - NSW Jen Webb, A report on the Exhibition (almost a poem) Driving towards Goulburn, over the tired hill, to see the show. Ahead are the beautiful ruined fields, bleached grass woven through with Patterson’s Curse. Everything is mauve and blonde. At the Gallery I see the same colours: in Yuri Kawanabe’s metal sighs; in Christanto’s weeping leaves. The same shimmering light is in Keiko Amenomori-Schmeisser’s fabrics: ‘energy restrained beneath the ancient landscape’. Inside the Gallery, under the cathedral ceiling, there’s an expanse of works. Towers of woven bamboo set in circlets of sushi rice (Yoshie Mizuno); 2-D pigeons burst out of black paper, fluttering across the wall to rest upon a Chinese lion (Pamela Mei-Leng See); Dadang’s flower-leaves weep on the wall nearby. (There’s so much going on; there’s always too much going on; there’s always too much history.) * * * What is on display?
The imprint of event and object on skin
* * * On the far wall, pigeons burst away from paper lions. On the plinths before me, the anodised aluminium shapes float, breathing through their glossy sheen, poised to fly. Behind, on the great round stage, Won Seok Kim’s pots – filled with emptiness, with ‘the space within our minds’ – march in their spiral journey, around and around, never reaching an end. * * * How we gather around us the things that mean home, however idiosyncratic they might be, however empirically wrong. What made us? What impressed itself on you, on me? How we gather around us the things that ask: how are we made? what traces of our making might remain? Here, at the Gallery, it’s:
* * * The pigeons erupt from the wall, flutter about the heads of the paper lions. The pots journey on and on, never reaching an end. Anodised aluminium is poised to fly, and on the far wall, the rice paper leaves weep. Everywhere there’s the busyness of things. The particularity of form. Everywhere, the materials of making: paper, fabric, tin, clay. ‘Paper reacts spontaneously … it’s almost like drawing’ (Yuri Kawanabe); shibori-treated fabric holds ‘the imprint of memory’ (Keiko); memories of home are ‘like a dream’ (Savanhdary Vongpoothorn): and her surfaces (acrylic on perforated canvas; a palimpsest) remember that the past is never really available, and never really lost. * * * Our memories are material. Folded, pressed, impressed; sculpted and stamped. Like us, these works are sojourners. Like us, they are never entirely at home. Jen Webb lives in Canberra, where she is director of Communication Research at the University of Canberra, and teaches creative writing and cultural theory. She is also a multiple migrant, having started in South Africa and then lived in most of the (anglophone) Commonwealth countries. Her recent publications include Reading the Visual (Sage 2004) and the collection of short fiction, Ways of Getting By (Ginninderra 2006). Understanding Representation (Sage), her latest academic publication, will be launched in 2008. She is co-editor of TEXT: the journal of the Association of Australian Writing Programs, and of the Sage book series Understanding Contemporary Subhash Jaireth, Response to Echoes of Home To touch or not to touch I think is the question. I like the way Heidegger divides the thing-ness of a thing—calling one the ‘vorhanden’ (present-at-hand) and the other ‘zunhanden’ (ready-to-hand). What happens to a thing when it becomes an object of art? The aesthetics which imparts beauty to it also alienates it. A vase so real in its zuhandensein transforms into an abstraction of a vorhandensein. Look at me, it tells me; walk around me, take my photo and touch my imprint in the photo, but don’t touch me. I am sorry, it wants to apologise, for creating the desire to touch and be touched but I am afraid the desire will have to remain unconsummated. Won Seok Kim’s Journey of a Bowl fascinates me. One hundred and twenty four pieces—one for each month of the year and hence a journey of twelve years. Am I being too literal and too metaphorical at the same time? Perhaps that’s what art does or wants to do—to juxtapose the physical/natural and the metaphysical/metaphorical, corrupting and substantiating both at the same time. The ‘ceramic objects’ are arranged in four concentric circles with a tall, vase-like ‘thing’, at the axis. An incarnation of the mythical Kala-Chakra (time-wheel). No, it’s not a wheel but a clock-wise spiral. A journey form outside to the inner core and then back from the core to the outside. The inner and the outer; the surface and the core; the time past and future with present made and unmade at every instance. On the outer surface of each object striations—marks of a turning wheel and imprints of a human hand touching it slowly, with care and love, to make its shape. The touch is moulded, preserved and expressed to be experienced. When I want to touch the vase, is it the dried clay, sand, water and heat, I desire to touch or the touch of a human hand? But whatever I touch I only touch the surface. The inner is always illusive, very much like the essence on which the notion of ‘home’ so culturally significant and so outrageously political becomes meaningful. The reality of home resides in the co-being of two moments: the idea of home and the emotional content associated with the idea. It’s the function of art to create and convey the emotional content—the feelings of love and hate, grief and joy, pain and pleasure, be-longing and non-be-longing. The objects in the exhibition of Echoes of Home carry this out wonderfully. I also like the title of the exhibition, particularly the word ‘echo’ attached to ‘home’. It makes me aware of the association between sound/voice and touch. We call and the ‘home’ calls back, echoing our call. Subhash Jaireth was born in a small town in Punjab, Northern India. Between 1969 and 1978 he spent nine years in Moscow. He has published poems in Hindi, Russian and English. A collection of his Hindi poems Before the Bullet Hit Me came out in 1994. A verse-narrative Unfinished Poems for Your Violin was published by Penguin Australia in 1996. His poems have appeared in Imago, LinQ, Northern Perspective, Scarp, Muse, Outrider and Canberra Times. His latest collection of poems Yashodhara: Six Seasons without You was published by Wild Peony in 2003. In the past few years his essays, story-essays and other prose pieces have been published in the Australian Short Stories, Conversations, Australian Book Review, Australian Review of Books, Meanjin, Imago, Southerly, Southern Reviews, UTS Review, Westerly, Redoubt and Heat. Caroline Turner, Response to Echoes of Home There are at least two notes of distinction about this exhibition, curated by Christine Clark. The first is that the art is overwhelmingly and poetically beautiful. And the second is that the exhibition is of real social significance. Clark has selected 14 artists, 13 of whom were born in Asia. Jennifer Lamb considers that Keiko Amenomori-Schmeisser’s gorgeous shibori textiles reflect ‘an Australia described with a Japanese accent’. But Dadang Christanto’s awesomely evocative creations stem essentially from the tragic experiences of his own country, Indonesia, leading him to respond artistically to universal human tragedy, with works that resonate wherever in the world they are shown. Yuri Kawanabe’s brightly decorative metal ‘ritual ornaments’ may draw some inspiration from Australian light and colour but are in the tradition of Japanese art and exquisite craftsmanship; Won Seok Kim’s majestic pottery is typically uncompromisingly Korean, as Humna Mustafa’s delicate textiles follow the purest Islamic tradition of art as an act of devotion; Jaishree Srinivasan’s meticulously geometrical designs are informed by the tradition of South Indian temple sculpture; and Liu Xiao Xian’s arresting and challenging sculptures would be perfectly at home in any Beijing or Shanghai contemporary gallery, although drawing on what Clark describes as his ‘personal history and the experience of living between two diverse cultures’, just as the exuberant assemblages of Alwin Reamillo’s allusive Study for the Mang Emo Grand Piano Project is a homage to his father and draws on Filipino tradition and social history, although Reamillo finds a similarity between the ‘crab mentality’ of Filipino culture and the notorious Australian ‘tall poppy’ syndrome. Yoshie Mizuno provides an example of harmonising diversity: she says her ‘work reflects my Japanese heritage and my identity as a migrant’, taking her inspiration from termite mounds which she sees as reminiscent of Zen gardens. And Shine Myung-ok Shin mingles populist Australian cultural symbols of the Chesty Bond era with minimalist Korean refinement deriving from the 2000-year tradition of tea ritual. Australian-Laotian Savanhdary Vongpoothorn’s work is infused with Lao aesthetic and spiritual culture, although she has used arrangements of casuarina seeds on paper to reflect traditional Lao motifs. Australian-Vietnamese clothes designer Alistair Trung represents the extreme of aesthetic multiculturality, seeking to modify the rigours of Western style by drawing on the flexibility and grace of Asia and the Mediterranean. It is of interest that the works perhaps most unequivocally Asian are the fascinating papercuts of Australian-Chinese Pamela Mei-Leng See, who was born in Australia, and the spectacular knitted folkloric images of Renee So, whose family were born in Hong Kong. What we actually have here is perhaps not a matter of ‘echoes of home’ so much as a number of artists of Asian ethnicity living in Australia and working in Asian traditions, but whose work reflects Australian resonances in varying degrees. Which is as it should be because Clark’s intention is to let us see the artists as individuals and the works in this outstanding exhibition are evocative of a human spirit and rich individual creativity that transcends cultural background. Dr Caroline Turner is a Senior Research Fellow in The Research School of Humanities Australian National University. From 2000-2007 she was Deputy Director of the Humanities Research Centre, ANU and prior to that spent 20 years as a senior art museum professional. As Deputy Director of the Queensland Art Gallery until 1999 she curated and organised over 50 international exhibitions and was co founder and Project Director for the first three Asia-Pacific Triennial exhibitions. Her book Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific, Pandanus Books, 2005, is a major overview of contemporary art in the region. Nicholas Ng, Audio Response to Echoes of Home Prelude Before the Bridge - recorder, erhu, pipa, percussion and electronics In this short composition, I engage with the concept of 'in-between-ness', an issue of engrossed interest amongst Asian Australian artists. The listener may appreciate the double vision that is apparent in the electro-acoustic soundscape, in which I have interwoven Asian and Western instrumentation in the creation of a cohesive whole. Prelude Before the Bridge hinges on the marriage of what in my mind registers as the eternal opposites: occident and orient, ancient and modern, light and dark. It is in some way a reflection on the infiltration of techno-culture into more traditional genres of music. Nicholas Ng (b. 1979) composes both contemporary classical and commercial music. He has been performed and commissioned by ensembles and organisations such as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Foundation for Universal Sacred Music, The Song Company, The Australian Voices, Music for Everyone, United Nations of Australia, Australian Choreographic Centre, Jigsaw Theatre, Tugpindulayaw Theatre, Sydney-Asia Pacific Film Festival and the Art Gallery of NSW. Published by Orpheus Music, his compositions have been broadcast on ABC Classic-FM and awarded prizes including the Ignaz Friedman Memorial Prize, De Viana Music Prize and the Orpheus Publications Composition Prize. As a performer, Nicholas plays the erhu (Chinese ‘violin’) for multicultural performances, multimedia artwork, theatre, dance and meditation. In 2004, he featured in Sounds of Peace, a meditation concert with David Jones (percussion) and Carmen Warrington (voice). Adept in a variety of musical styles, Nicholas has featured at venues such as ‘The Studio’, Sydney Opera House, Yat-Sen Memorial Hall (Taipei) and Merkin Concert Hall (New York City). He is honoured to be performing with Chinese-Australian artist William Yang in the Performing Lines production, China, recently toured to the Adelaide OzAsia Festival and the Melbourne International Arts Festival 2007. Nicholas is currently completing a PhD with Prof. Larry Sitsky and ICTM Secretary General Dr. Stephen Wild at the ANU School of Music. Integrating the disciplines of composition and ethnomusicology, Nicholas’ doctoral research focuses on Chinese spirituality and music in contemporary Sydney. He has used a library of sounds, extra-musical material and other data gathered since 2003 as the basis for a 50-minute chamber opera, Eclipse and a number of orchestral and ensemble works. Nicholas has just been awarded a place in the Symphony Australia Composer Development program and will compose a new work for Orchestra Victoria under the tutelage of composer/conductor Richard Mills. Combined with an overwhelming interest in spirituality and his ethnic Chinese roots, Nicholas seeks to marry the ancient and the modern in innovative ways through the use of acoustic instruments and electronic sound. For more information, please contact Nicholas: RMIT Gallery - VIC Adam Broinowski responds to Echoes of Home and the work of Liu Xiao Xian Closing January 19 instead of January 26 as originally scheduled coupled with my computer refusing to live again meant that my memory from the opening of Echoes of Home: memories and mobility in recent Austral-Asian Art at the RMIT Gallery was fragmented at best. Interestingly, the sculpture comprising two figures standing in the left hand corner of the main gallery had left an indelible impression. ‘The Couple’ (2004) by Liu Xiao Xian, an artist who arrived in Australia in 1990 after growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, was almost blunt in its characterization of the eastern and western character, while resonating with a multiplicity of complex nuances. Part of Liu Xiao Xian’s broader comparative study, the two immutable figures made during a residency in China in 2004 represent the undeniable differences of the eastern and western medical traditions. The western method of dissection, isolation and excision by surgical operation represented by an exotic camphor wood copy of the familiar anatomical model of a female missing an arm suggests a colonial attitude of corporeality as terrain. Alternately, the surface of the bronze male Chinese body scored with the characters and nodal points of acupuncture, a system to manipulate remote organs without altering the body’s structural integrity, reflects a view of the body as a structural whole. In emergency the surgical method is more effective while acupunctural treatment is less invasive and not as traumatic. One is short-term while the other is long-term in its view. And yet both approaches are now widely used in the east and west, although in varying degrees. Liu Xiao Xian’s liminal condition of cultural ‘double vision’ can only be the result of having lived in both cultures. His isolated and Coupled figures, now within him, suggest a cultural schizophrenia. Perhaps via exposure to life in Australia his view has become more Chinese, or perhaps it is no more accurate to describe this vision as ‘double’ as it is to apply the term Chinese-Australian, for their official yet limited accuracy. For the sake of discussion, if Liu’s bodies are to be seen as nation states comprising body politic and national borders, then the west seems more open, exposed and under (de)construction while China is permeable if only by tiny, carefully insinuated needles. As the Chinese bronze body might be more resilient and self-contained - a fortified body, the western wooden body seems unfinished and constructable with parts from elsewhere - an interlocking body. Yet if the artist’s eye is observed, it may be that a process of identification is with one figure as opposed to another - an eye penetrating the west while maintaining a stoic and robust Chinese stance. While this could be seen as a manifestation of the desire for revenge for at least a century of colonial wars flowing from Europe, ironically, this figurative technique is modernist while using traditional materials, suggesting that there is more at play than interpreting cultural stereotypes. Ultimately a relationship between the two figures reveal a game of differences. We are all certainly not the same. What chimeraic bodies lie between the polarities? And how far can a metaphor of bodies be taken before we return to the relatively simple comparison of medical approaches to illness? Perhaps where a cure is sought, ownership of a system takes secondary priority to its application. In this work by Liu Xiao Xian we see a concern with systemic approaches to the body which embody and go beyond his individual experience and national borders to contrasting ways of thought about the body. Adam Broinowski is a writer/director/performer and translator based in Melbourne. He made the award-winning documentary Hell Bento! (SBSiTV, 1995) with Tetrapod and has performed, written and directed independent solo (Vivisection Vision, Gherkin) and group shows (Know No Cure, Hotel Obsino, H20, The Great Gameshow of Pernicious Influences) and with many Australian theatre companies (Company B, desoxy, Dramalab, La Mama, Magpie, nyid, Playbox, Salamanca, Snuff Puppets, Stalker), Malaysian company Dramalab and Japanese company Gekidan Kaitaisha, touring to festivals in South America, Europe, UK, US, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan and around Australia. He was a research fellow at University of Tokyo (2003-2005) when based in Tokyo for 5 years where he was a core member of Gekidan Kaitaisha. He is a PhD candidate at University of Melbourne/VCA. Belinda Smaill, Echoes of Home: Memory and Mobility in Recent Austral-asian Art Home is a multiple, almost over-determined kind of place that is quantified in different ways by different people at different moments in their lives and depending on the reasons for giving voice to this attachment. Echoes of Home struck me as an endeavour to bring together a collection of art, and art practices, that work to signify on the surface of the boundary between a number of intersecting cultural formations - art and craft, home and host, memory of the past and experience of the present. Given the breadth of both the practices included here and the cultural backgrounds of the artists this opens out into an impossible coherence. What the works do have in common is that they are all produced by Asian Australian artists and these are artists who have all chosen to signify on this identity. Yet, as I moved around the exhibition space, it was the incommensurability of the works that appealed to me. They communicated a tension that spoke to a divergence of preoccupations. Three works in particular drew my attention in this way. Alwin Reamillo’s installation stood out in the exhibition space. Part of the reason for this is the clutter of the many small objects on display that appear overloaded with meaning and the play of signification. The catalogue notes indicate that they are infused with childhood memories, cultural history and popular culture. If this is the case, the work is set against the wall in way that places it as a shrine to all of these. The tactile quality of Roman Catholicism’s iconography looms large in the detail here, a suggestion of the colonising culture of Reamillo’s homeland, the Philippines. In comparison, Yuri Kawanabe’s works offer the viewer a much more minimal objects of contemplation - from the stimulating clutter of Reamillo’s work, they exist as refined ornaments that focus attention on line and shape and colour. Reminiscent of paper but actually made of aluminium, these sculptural pieces are not jewellery but encapsulate the same idea. Moreover, Kawanabe’s creations are plant-like, perhaps a reference to an Australian landscape, yet the name of at least one of the works, which is in Japanese, begins to bring associations with the features of a Japanese visual aesthetic. Different again are Renee So’s framed stylised portraits as they are both simple and intricate. My background as a cinema scholar led me to see these as screens. In a way this is quite apt. The knitted faces reference the Orientalising (in Edward Said’s use of the term) style of Chinoiserie, a romanticised rendering of “The East”. These portraits are cultural screens that project already held ideas about China rather than the reality of heterogeneous culture. TAll three works have commonalities and this is what qualified them for inclusion in the show, but for me, it is their stark differences as objects, or collections of objects, and their different ways of manifesting attachments to place that is most compelling. Belinda Smaill is a lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Monash University. Her areas of research encompass Australian film and television, multicultural and diaspora studies, cinema and the emotions and documentary film. She has published in numerous journals including The Journal of Film and Video, Post Script: Essays in Film and Humanities, The Journal of Communication Inquiry and Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies. She is currently undertaking a research project on Asian Australian Cinema in collaboration with Dr Audrey Yue and Dr Olivia Khoo. Catherine Gomes responds to Echoes of Home Echoes of Home is really a necessary exhibition reflecting on the complex issues of identity confronting many Asians in Australia. Many of the artists in this exhibition attempt to confront such issues in their work, hence the mix and mingling of traditional art forms within a contemporary context. This is usually done by incorporating experience with traditional art forms such as Keiko Amenomori-Schmessier’s stunning shibori (tie-dye) pieces or fusing Eastern and Western visual signifiers such as Renee So’s eye-catching East/West face-fusing knitted images. However, what I am perhaps most struck by about this theme of identity is not the clichéd notion of being Asian in Australia but rather, the idea of Australia as a place for reflection about being Asian. Dadang Christanto’s accompanying commentary quite aptly notes that “Australia makes Christanto feel more ‘Asian’, it has also freed him to explore his past”. With this freedom to explore one’s Asian identity, the artists take the opportunity to look into traditional spiritualities. It is within this framework that I was drawn to the self-reflective work of Alwin Reamillo and the quietly understated but visually striking canvases of Savanhdary Vongpoothorn. While Reamillo’s use of the organic (crabshells) and inorganic (felt) is at best - and in his own words - experimental, the essence of his work is intensely personal. While the title of his work “Study for the Mang Emo Grand Piano” did indeed reproduce a condensed and imaginative reproduction of a grand piano, it is his project’s resemblance to an altar that struck me the most. The use of old black and white photographs, in particular that of a young man or teenaged boy, provide for an eerie yet unforgettable experience. Likewise, there is something haunting and mystical about Vongpoothorn’s canvases. It is difficult to explain what it is about Vongpoothorn’s work that is strangely hypnotic. Perhaps it is the explanation on the accompanying notes that her work is inspired by khaathaa, a sacred Laotian language. Or perhaps it is the meticulousness of her patterns that made me appreciate the effort she put in to create such understated work. While Echoes of Home is an exhibition of purpose, it is also an exhibition that showcases very talented artists. On entering the exhibition hall, I was very pleased to be greeted by Wong Seok Kim’s ceramics display. Wong’s work is definitely a choice piece of magnitude that welcomes any visitor. Likewise, the imaginative detailing seen in Hamna Mustafa’s fabric panels and Liu Xiao Xian’s wooden anatomic statues would also capture anyone’s rapt attention. As a diasporic Asian visiting an exhibition by other diasporic Asians, this was an experience which created conflicting responses in me that ranged from recognition and familiarity to curious and quizzical. Any exhibition that requires an individual to survey the complex fields of self must surely continue or spawn other such events! Catherine Gomes lectures in Asian media and culture at RMIT’s School of Applied Communication. She recently received a PhD from the University of Melbourne in History and is currently rewriting her thesis on the cross-cultural reception of swordswomen in Chinese-language films into a monograph. While Catherine has published in the area of Asian genders and ethnicities in film, her current research is on the cultural memory of domestic service in Singapore. Yvonne Foley, My feelings and thoughts on Echoes of Home On entering the main exhibition room the first things that grabbed my attention was the work of Renee So. I recognized those face masks and going closer I laughed and continued to view her work. Perhaps it was because we I had lived in Hong Kong that the theme of Renee’s work appealed to me. She had put a great deal of thought into what she had produced and her play with the mix of East and West was fun. Plus, I do not feel that she took things too seriously. One comment that did annoy me was written about Renee’s work - “...her use of the feminised domestic medium...”! Give me a break - men have knitted for years, sailors knitted on long voyages. Why do we have to slot art into gender? Why not accept that the work has been created by an artist and view it as such? Alistair Trung’s work was really very appealing to me. I felt that I could have worn one or two of his pieces in my younger days. The titles he gave to his pieces were really rather clever - real ‘grabbers’. I shall look out for his work in future to see if he comes up with something I could wear now. I enjoyed the whole exhibition but did not feel that it particularly called anyone ‘home’. The work of each artist seemed to show their experimentation into their own fields. Nor did the exhibition strike me as relating particularly to Australia - it was just wonderful ART. Yvonne Foley: “Born in the UK 6 decades ago, I have been typist, clerk, youth worker and teacher of English. I have lived in Hong Kong, Canada and, of course, Australia. My interest in Asia comes from my own ‘Chinese genes’. My father was from Shanghai but I was raised as a European.”
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