Victorian College of the Arts - Research Publications
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ItemDon't Be Like the Jebarra: Reconsidering the Ethics of Ethnomusicological Practice in an Indigenous Australian Context(Routledge, 2022-11-30)An implicit goal of ethnomusicology is acquisition of knowledge about music—historically the music of a cultural world other than that held by the outsider ethnomusicologist prior to their study. Our methods are often sound recording and other forms of collection, and participation in musical practices. Complex issues arise when the assumptions and methods of ethnomusicology are valued differently by region, group, generation, individual, or otherwise. Likewise, complex issues arise when the ethical framework for holding knowledge in a particular cultural context is at odds with institutional and disciplinary expectations with regard to authority, publication, and ownership of knowledge, in the academy. Via two provocations–that sound recording and collection, and participation in musical practice such that the ethnomusicologist acquires knowledge that is then held in their bodies, might be compared to the actions of the Jebarra (and ancestral figure in Ngarinyin lifeworld who stole communal resources and broke the Law of sharing) – in this chapter the authors (one an outsider ethnomusicologist and one an insider researcher and cultural custodian) reconsider the ethics of outsider ethnomusicological practice. Through reflection on a 20-year history of collaboration, the chapter considers local frames for understanding the role of the work of repatriation and return, and other forms of collaboration. It finds that there are local strategies for sustaining people and place across generations despite massive periods of disruption, and that these are also deployed to manage the risks attendant with the interventions of outsiders, and makes a case for outsider and insider researchers and practitioners to consider the role of care and nurturing in research.
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ItemMusic Endangerment, Repatriation, and Intercultural Collaboration in an Australian Discomfort Zone(Oxford University Press, 2021-04-15)To the extent that intercultural ethnomusicology in the Australian settler state operates on a colonialist stage, research that perpetuates a procedure of discovery, recording, and offsite archiving, analysis, and interpretation risks repeating a form of musical colonialism with which ethnomusicology worldwide is inextricably tied. While these research methods continue to play an important role in contemporary intercultural ethnomusicological research, ethnomusicologists in Australia in recent years have become increasingly concerned to make their research available to cultural heritage communities. Cultural heritage communities are also leading discovery, identification, recording, and dissemination to support, revive, reinvent, and sustain their practices and knowledges. Repatriation is now almost ubiquitous in ethnomusicological approaches to Aboriginal music in Australia as researchers and collaborating communities seek to harness research to respond to the impact that colonialism has had on social and emotional well-being, education, the environment, and the health of performance traditions. However, the hand-to-hand transaction of research products and represented knowledge from performers to researcher and archive back to performers opens a new field of complexities and ambiguities for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants: just like earlier forms of ethnomusicology, the introduction, return, and repatriation of research materials operate in “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination” (Pratt 2007 [1992]). In this chapter, we recount the processes and outcomes of “The Junba Project” located in the Kimberley region of northwest Australia. Framed by a participatory action research model, the project has emphasized responsiveness, iteration, and collaborative reflection, with an aim to identify strategies to sustain endangered Junba dance-song practices through recording, repatriation, and dissemination. We draw on Pratt’s notion of the “contact zone” as a “discomfort zone” (Somerville & Perkins 2003) and look upon an applied/advocacy ethnomusicological project as an opportunity for difference and dialogue in the repatriation process to support heterogeneous research agendas.
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ItemRapture: A Study in Pathos and Scenography(International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), 2022)This article presents Aby Warburg’s art historical approach as a potential guide for scenographic creation and analysis, forwarding Rapture as an example: a song cycle presented by Sydney Festival 2021 to a live and livestreamed audience. The author designed the set and costumes for Rapture and here reflects upon the following questions: can Warburg’s appreciation for “emotive formulas” and “engrams” assist in the making of compelling scenography when conditions for live performance are so altered from the standard? How does a design methodology championing synoptics, analytics and empathy, as Warburg did, integrate within a broader collaboration? Reconstructing Rapture’s design evolution, this study looks to the Laocoön Group, Il Medico and geometries associated with hypnosis as three persuasive pathos carriers. It finds that scenographic focus, potency and expediency arise from the proposed methodology.
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ItemX (for Kate)(Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne, 2022-08-04)X (2022) was a site-specific work that considered the nature of colour, representation, and the limits of minimalist affect. A monochrome (yellow) chalk drawing, X was conceived as a memorial artwork in remembrance of late colleague Kate Daw. “X” is a kiss. “X” marks the spot. “X” is also an end. X (2022) extended upon the legacies of Mimimalism to consider representational and affective experience. A monochrome of bright yellow chalk covering the entirety of a salon-style gallery wall, the colour was the same bright sun-yellow as a gifted cashmere jumper. It was also a colour Kate would wear. The density of the chalk pigment presented a kind of visual absorption. As an affective experience, and through metaphor, X (2022) innovatively and sympathetically presented an artwork of affective memorialisation. X (2022) was created for the exhibition “Love, work (for KD)” held at Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne. The exhibition was a tribute exhibition for the artist and academic Kate Daw (1965-2020), who was the Head of Art, VCA, School of Fine Art at the University of Melbourne when she passed. She was a close colleague and friend. A vastly popular and influential figure, the exhibition “Love, work (for KD)” was notably well attended by artists, academics and industry figures. The experience of attendees, including critic Amelia Winata (winnyyoyo on Instagram) were frequently shared on social media, often featuring the artwork X (2022).
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ItemNo Preview AvailableSelf Care Action(Beechworth Contemporary Art Award, 2022-09-15)Self Care Action is an ongoing series of 20 hand-knitted panels bearing texts relating to self-care. The project explores how self-care has its roots in radical activism. As a term, it dates to the US based civil rights and women’s rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Each work operates a simple reminder that I consider crucial for my own emotional survival and resilience. It is also an invitation to others to imagine how they might prioritise caring for themselves and the personal and political implications of self care, particularly for women. The knitted Self Care Action panels are all the same size. They are brightly coloured and deploy the same rounded font. These simple design elements underscore the optimism of the project and the clarity of the actions. Actions from the series include: Ask for help, Stay Present, Switch Off Your Phone, Love Yourself, Make Art, Get Into Nature, Feel Your Feelings, Get Therapy, and Say No. The works were shared on Instagram via @katejustknits and using the #katejustselfcareaction with images of each work, pictures of me holding each sign up, and text about each self-care prompt. The work considers how in a political climate in which women's rights are being challenged and threatened, war is being waged around the globe, and a pandemic is unfolding, how art and conversation around self care can provide a mode of resistance and resilience. The fact that the works are knitting further amplifies the potential to use craft as a medium to explore and cultivate ideas of care. The Beechworth Contemporary Art Award was a competitive award in which only ten finalists were selected, attesting to the works significance. Knitting events held during the presentation of this work at Beechworth were well attended by the public. Radio interview on 94.9 Maine FM shared the project more widely. The work will continue to be developed to a major presentation of 45 works at Linden Gallery in March 2023, and then be included in a curated exhibition of textile artists at Hugo Michell Gallery in July 2023. Interest from Shepparton Art Museum and Tamworth Textile Triennial further attest to the works' relvance at this time. The work was funded by an Australia Council Fellowship, a prestigious art award that goes to one visual artist in Australia each year.
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ItemAll the things I should have said that I never said(Bunjil Place, City of Casey, 2022)
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ItemPimp my Gauguin: Yuki Kihara's Paradise Camp (or Why Post Impressions Matter)(Artlink Australia, 2022-11-18)David Sequeira's Review of New Zealand Pavilion, 59th La Biennale di Venezia 23 April — 27 November 2022 published in Artlink 18 November 2022
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ItemTheorem(MEJIA Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, 2022-11-30)Theorem: an exhibition comprised of 11 figurative sculptures cast in plaster that shed light on series of philosophical propositions in the in work of philosopher Michel Serres,.entitled Statues: A Second Foundation. The sculpture exhibition gives a material form to a series of philosophical concerns regrading the origins of sculpture and the interconnections between sculpture as idol, as theological transgression in the 3 monotheistic religions of the book, as embodiment of death, and in recent scientific research. Through an aesthetic engagement with materials, abstract concepts are given a palpably tactile and visual form. Image of exhibition attached. A paper discussing the connection to philosophy of Herder on the liminality of sculpture in relation to my the exhibition, Theorem, was presented at the Australasian School of Continental Philosophy conference 28th - 30th Nov, 2022 by Professor Alexander Garcia Duttmann, Universitat de Kunst, Berlin. See Duttmann's paper attached and his Institutional affiliation.
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ItemEffects of Mirror and Metronome Use on Spontaneous Dance Movements(HUMAN KINETICS PUBL INC, 2021-01)This study investigated effects of mirror and metronome use on spontaneous upper body movements by 10 preprofessional dancers in a motor task in which maximally diverse upper body movement patterns were targeted. Hand and trunk accelerations were digitally recorded utilizing accelerometers and analyzed using polar frequency distributions of the realized acceleration directions and sample entropy of the acceleration time. Acceleration directions were more variably used by the arms than by the torso, particularly so when participants monitored their performance via a mirror. Metronome use hardly affected the predictability of the acceleration time series. The findings underscore the intrinsic limitations that people experience when being asked to move randomly and reveal moderate effects of visual and acoustic constraints on doing so in dance.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableShort Films by Mischa Baka and Siobhan Jackson(https://www.pureshitauscinema.com/unknown_pleasures_2022.html#19, 2022-07-26)A retrospective screening/exhibition of short films written, directed and edited by creative screen collaborators, Siobhan Jackson and Mischa Baka