Decentering Australian Art – Beyond the fixed canons of Australian art history

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Decentring Australian Art: Looking Past the Mainstream is an Australian Research Council-funded project (2018—) which seeks to document, investigate and understand a broad swathe of Australian visual practice beyond the fixed canons of art history. The project aims to open public awareness to the work of artists who have experienced marginalisation within the art world and within Australian society at large. This includes work by artists with experience of disability or mental health issues; artists with a history of incarceration; artists from refugee and recent migrant backgrounds; and untrained artists who commenced artmaking following a significant life event.

The term ‘Decentering’ in the project’s title signifies our challenge to existing histories of Australian art. We conceptualise the existing canon of art in Australia – which has failed to adequately take account of non-mainstream artists and their work – as a centred, one-dimensional narrative which needs to be replaced by a more multiple understanding of the diversity of artistic practice in this country. The outcomes of the project will include several books and journal articles, as well as a website and a proposed art exhibition.

Project Team: Anthony White, Grace McQuiltin, Charles Green, Anna Parlane

Project Advisory Board: Peter Fay, Ian MacLean, Alison Bennett, Sim Luttin, Sue Roff, Safdar Ahmed, David Doyle, Lindy Judge, Wart Burg, Michael Camakaris, Nur Shkembi, Max Delany, Peter Waples-Crowe.

[Image: Michael Camakaris, Pre, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 168 x 153 cm. Image courtesy of Arts Project Australia.]

Link: https://decentringaustralianart.org/

Decentering Australian Art – Beyond the fixed canons of Australian art history | Nur Shkembi