Sample research statements from ERA 2018 submission NTRO Type Title of output Research Statement Public exhibitions Adelaide Chamber Singers 2016 Research Background: Adelaide Chamber Singers' 2016 Concert Season was created and and events Concert Season curated by Carl Crossin - Artistic Director and Conductor of Adelaide Chamber Singers (ACS). The Season consisted of four concert programs which explored, through performance, (a) the creative nexus between contemporary choral and music from the European Renaissance particularly in relation to settings of the same, or similar texts, and (b) the power of music to reinforce textual narrative in musical forms. Three of the four programs featured the world premiere of new music commissioned by Carl Crossin and ACS for this Season. Research Contribution: Program One explored several settings of texts in praise of music including a comparatively new work by Australian Paul Stanhope – Lament for St. Cecilia – composed as a companion piece for Britten's famous Hymn to St. Cecilia. Australian Daniel Brinsmead's Ode to Music (an ACS commission) was also premiered. Program Two presented the Adelaide premiere of James Whitbourn's Annelies, an extended narrative work with texts from the Diary of Anne Frank. Program Three explored the concept of contemporary composers re-imagining the works of earlier composers. Program Four featured a new work (ACS commission) from Australian Paul Stanhope in a performance that subsequently won the South Australian "2016 Performance of the Year Award" at the 2017 Art Music Awards. The major part of Program Four however was a 'chamber' performance of Faure's Requiem. This work is usually the province of much larger choirs but, in this context, was praised for its clarity and intimacy. Research Significance: Three new choral compositions (ACS commissions) entered the Australian choral repertoire in 2016. Press reviews were consistently very positive and, as such, provide a measure of the impact of ACS programs and performances within the musical community and an indicator of peer respect for the ensemble and its programs and performances. Public exhibitions 10 Minutes to Midnight: Survival in Research Background: 10 Minutes to Midnight is the culmination of community-based arts and events the atomic age projects with atomic survivor communities including: Pitantjatjara Anangu in Yalata and Oak Valley, communities who were relocated from traditional Maralinga Tjarutja lands Sample Research Statements 1 prior to the tests; and nuclear veteran and descendant networks in Australia and Britain. Research Contribution: The creative works fit within a long tradition of artists and communities responding to 'the bomb'. Featured are original projection installations, digital artwork, contemporary photo media, sound design, sculpture, film and rare archival material. As well as exploring the horrors of the atomic age, the exhibition embodies humanitarian messages of hope, celebrating the resilient communities and individuals who continue to pursue recognition and justice, and courageously share their stories for the benefit of future generations. Research Significance: The timing of the exhibition coincides with the 70-year anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings - the beginning of the atomic age. The level of community engagement with the project broke new ground in the idea of art and participation, and showed how artists and community combine in the act of commemoration and healing. Public exhibitions Turner - Romantic and Research Background: The curated concert 'Turner – Romantic and Revolutionary' was and events Revolutionary commissioned by the Art Gallery of South Australia to complement the exhibition Turner from the Tate. Research Contribution: The preparation of the program required research into the art and ideas of Turner, and focused on how Turner's artistic praxis might translate into a sonic medium. Themes from the paintings were reflected in the musical choices: Venice (barcarolle), the Romantic sublime (Liszt), night (nocturne). Much of the music dated from Turner's lifetime: Haydn, Field, Mendelssohn, Liszt. Creative response came in the form of a specially commissioned work for the concert, The Fallacies of Hope for piano quintet by Stephen Whittington, based on an unfinished poem by Turner, which explored the dialectic between visual trope, sonic nuance and literary expression, using the form of the barcarolle. Research Significance: When Turner from the Tate moved from the AGSA to the National Gallery of Australia, the musical program was judged to be so integral to the exhibition as a whole that it also accompanied the Canberra exhibit. The performers in both cases were The Australian String Quartet, and Stephen Whittington. Original Creative Piano Lessons Research Background: 'Piano Lessons' is a memoir that investigates a new form of writing Work about music and music education. It thus contributes to both creative writing and the literature of music in an innovative and highly appealing way, part-autoethnography, part- entertainment, part-instruction. It chronicles the author's first steps towards a life in music, from childhood piano lessons with a local jazz muso to international success as a concert pianist. Research Contribution: The work creates new knowledge in the field of creative writing through its development of appropriate modalities for conveying the hopes and Sample Research Statements 2 uncertainties of youth, the fear and exhilaration of performing, and the complex bonds between teacher and student. This is part a process of formal invention, and part a question of voice and tone. The content and balance in this hybrid, episodic, carefully judged work contributes significantly to contemporary Australian life writing. Goldsworthy refracts her childhood experiences through the prism of music, casting new light on human experience and the world of music. Research Significance: The work enjoys critical acclaim, awards, reprintings and its adaptation into recital and stage versions. Winner, 2010 Australian Book Industry Awards (Newcomer of the Year); Shortlisted, 2012 Melbourne Prize Award for Best Writing; Shortlisted, Colin Roderick Award (Australian Life Writing); Shortlisted, 2010 Australian Book Industry Awards (General Non-Fiction); Shortlisted, NSW Premier's Literary Awards (Non-Fiction). Reviews include: "Goldsworthy delivers an expertly spun narrative, told with wry, self-effacing charm, elegant economy and the genuine love of a student for her teacher." —The Australian; "This impressive debut will surely mark Anna Goldsworthy's arrival as an Australian writer to be reckoned with." — The Age Original Creative Inspired Design: European and Research Background: Inspired Design was curated by the Art Gallery of South Australia's Work North American decorative arts Curator of European and Australian Decorative Arts, Robert Reason. Supported by the Copland Foundation, the exhibition and accompanying publication focused on the Gallery's European and North American decorative arts collection. Research Contribution: The exhibition provided insights into what are regarded as defining moments in the history of Western aesthetics, style and fashion. It further emphasized the role of curation as both a research process (through the juxtaposition of artefacts in order to highlight specific historical trends) and as an outcome of the research undertaken in preparation for the exhibition. Research Significance: The exhibition was the first to document comprehensively the rich artistic heritage of Europe and North America, as expressed through the decorative arts collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Aside from its historical significance, the exhibition shed further light of the importance of philanthropy in supporting the aims of the Gallery more broadly, and the narratives it seeks to communicate. In this case, the uniqueness of the collection is a reflection of the diverse nature of what has been over 130 years of philanthropy at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Original Creative Bapo Research Background: Bapo makes a distinctive contribution to contemporary Australian Work writing and transcultural Asian Australian writing and the translation of Chinese aesthetic Sample Research Statements 3 ideas in contemporary creative practice. It builds on my previous fiction, notably The Red Thread, that adapted classic Chinese memoir into a contemporary fictional mode. It also extends my research practice, as demonstrated in a number of essays and projects in recent years, on transnational or transcultural reading and writing, of which Bapo is a key example. Through practice-led research the work contributes to our rethinking of the dominant paradigm of world literature. Research Contribution: This book-length collection of short fiction takes the concept of bapo, a term from Chinese visual art to describe a kind of illusionistic collage which is fragmentary and elegiac, so-called 'brocade ashes', to assemble a sequence of stories and sketches. The research explores experimental ways to evoke relations between China and Australia in terms of content and adapt formal ideas of essayistic prose or semi-fictional story from Chinese tradition into a contemporary Australian context. This is the first work of fiction to identify bapo ('eight broken') as a model for a 'composed' book of this kind and to relate it to changing, multiple possibilities of cultural and personal identity. Research Significance: The