Text/Object 2008 - An exhibition of collaborative and interdisciplinary works by staff of the CSU SVPA

Text/Object 2008

Preface : Professor David Green Head of School of Visual and Performing Arts Charles Sturt University

There is a special and lasting relationship that exists between Charles Sturt University and the City of Wagga Wagga and there is no better demonstration of this association than that which has been forged over the past four decades between the School of Visual and Performing Arts and the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery. How fortunate for all parties that Wagga Wagga City Council invested in the cultural development of the city with an active arts policy that included a gallery and library complex.

During this time both staff and students from the University have exhibited in the gallery complexes; these exhibitions have included every genre of arts practices, allowing the contributors the opportunity to challenge and occasionally provoke controversy; No More Lies#1 2005, Michael Agzarian, and Jamie Holcombe’s Fucking Bat and Man 2005, which was a caustic commentary on the censorship of David Ahern’s Fucking Bat and Boy 1990, that had been removed from a student exhibition in the original city art gallery in Gurwood Street.

Traditionally staff exhibitions have primarily focused on the achievements and ingenuity of the individual; Conduit 2005; Transference 2000 whereas this latest offering Text/Object has required that the majority of the participants move away from their comfort zone by demanding that they engage in a collaborative process.

Collaboration is a multifaceted concept traditionally more common in the performing arts where actors, musicians and designers make use of collaborative processes as an integral means of creating visual and aural experiences. For many of the visual artists represented here, the debate has shifted from the individual “what will I do?” to the collective “what will we do?” from “how will I do this?” to “how should we best approach this”. Of greater importance has been the dialogue that has taken place between the collaborators to ensure that their collaboration is seamless and equitable and not simply, you do that bit and I will do this, but rather a journey of the partners travelling a common route to a common agreed outcome; a process that requires continuous and committed discussion.

This exhibition has been long in gestation with discussion and debate between and among the collaborators for the best part of twelve months. I trust that you will accept the invitation to be part of the journey, a first for the school.

Professor David Green
Head of Campus - Wagga Wagga
Charles Sturt University