THE PARTNERSHIPPING PROJECT 2016–2020 PLACE MATTERS ii PLACE MATTERS Does where we choose to live still matter? How much impact does place make on how we create and live our lives? And how have our relationships with place changed in the globalised on-line world? And while we’re on this subject of place, does living in regional Australia change the way artists work? And at what points—if any—can concerns about Country experienced by First Nations Australian artists be shared by non-Indigenous Australians? All of these questions and more formed the core around which the 26 month unfolding of The Partnershipping Project evolved. Bringing together 20 artists from diverse cultural origins, the directors and staff from four regional galleries, touring- team members, writers and educators, the original framework swelled to include artistic collaborators and communities as it moved forward on its touring cycle. This publication brings together images and ideas that emerged from the travelling exhibition project between November 2018 and December 2020 to project ongoing discussions about our changing sense of place in a globalised world. Ironically, over the course of that period, the central premise of our relatively humble project was jettisoned into global critical urgency as the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic unrolled. Almost overnight, issues that included the necessity to refocus considerations of the relationship between global and local understandings about belonging, inter-connectedness and agency emerged as crucial to survival. Closer to home, this anthology of words and images offers insight into the creatively diverse abundance of visual culture in four Australian regions. The richly nuanced capacities of their artists and communities materialise through stories and images where the importance of nurturing and sustaining land, waters, histories and communities are shared by First Nations and non-indigenous Australians alike. www.thepartnershippingproject.net.au ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Professional and personal thanks to: Rosemary Miller, the co-curator of the project, without whose determination, grit and belief in the value of art and artists this project would never have gotten off the ground. To the Gallery Directors Dawn Oelrich (Burnie Regional Art Gallery, Tasmania); Dr. Jonathan McBurnie; Kellie Williams (Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville, Queensland); Brett Adlington (Lismore Regional Gallery, New South Wales) and Melentie Pandilowski (Riddoch Art Gallery, Mount Gambier, South Australia), for their belief in the ideas behind the project and their commitment to taking on the challenges that came along with it. To all the staff at these regional galleries, including Randolph Wylie and Mary Reilly (Burnie), Angela Little (Townsville) Fiona Fraser (Lismore), and Serena Wong (Mount Gambier). To the team at Contemporary Art Tasmania, and especially to Colin Langridge, whose patient and clear-headed support and initiative always made everything seem possible. To Troy Melville of Media Move for his haunting little cameos of each of the artists’ relationship to their work. To Claire Pendrigh for the Education and Extension programs that were so important to reaching out to broader audiences. To Daniel Thomas and Greg Lehman, for the gutsy, informed and provocative nature of their writing contribution to the broadsheet and subsequently, to this publication. To Adam Geczy for his critical responses to the project. To Jon Bowling for the exhibition furniture and shipping container fit-outs. To Vanghoua Anthony Vue, for his enduring patience, his flawless reliability and his consistently beautiful designs for the website, posters, broadsheets and this book. To the artists, without whose commitment the entire project means nothing. To eagle-eye Stephanie Britton for her copyedit of the manuscript. And to my remarkable, resilient and inspiring daughter Visaya, who remains core to my world, no matter whether global or local. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 106 | Greg LEONG INSTALLATIONS ESSAYS 116 | Anne LORD 03 126 | Gail MABO 208 260 Pat Hoffie Burnie Regional Trans-local; Globalism and Changing 134 | Aris PRABAWA Art Gallery Patterns of Belonging 142 | Brian ROBINSON Pat Hoffie Pat Hoffie OVERVIEW 150 | Obery SAMBO 156 | Damien SHEN 222 268 04 Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts The Other Side Pat Hoffie 164 | Hiromi TANGO Pat Hoffie Greg Lehman 172 | Vanghoua Anthony VUE TOURING MODEL 182 | Sera WATERS 234 274 Lismore Regional Gallery Spirit of Place: My Tasmanian Riviera GALLERY DIRECTORS’ Pat Hoffie Daniel Thomas 05 STORIES Pat Hoffie 190 | Brett ADLINGTON CRITICAL RESPONSES 192 | Jonathan McBURNIE 246 ARTISTS Riddock Art Gallery | Partnershipping in 195 | Dawn OELRICH the Time of Covid 284 Serena Wong Thoughts About The 06 199 | Melentie PANDILOVSKI Partnershipping Project Pat Hoffie 203 | Kellie WILLIAMS 254 Adam Geczy ARTISTS’ STORIES & Burnie Regional Art Gallery 288 ARTWORKS Nulla Sine Memore Voluptas 14 | Ritchie ARES DOÑA (No Pleasure without Regret) Greg Lehman with Pat Hoffie 22 | Selena DE CARVALHO 30 | Karla DICKENS POST-SCRIPT 38 | Rob DOUMA 48 | Penny EVANS 292 58 | Lisa GARLAND Pat Hoffie 68 | Dave mangenner GOUGH 76 | Jamin 86 | Joan KELLY 96 | Greg LEHMAN 3 INTRODUCTION Hoffie Pat Introduction | Introduction At the beginning of the project, as Director of Key issues emerged clearly from the project’s Salamanca Arts Centre, Rosemary Miller invited first exhibition in Burnie: the need for critically me to come up with an innovative touring engaged cultural responses to the plight of the initiative that might challenge the standard environment and the necessity of paying heed touring model. In this, the exhibition selected to First Nations knowledge; the value for trans- and assembled by a curator remains unchanged cultural approaches to new understandings of the throughout the touring process. That model has its world we share; recognition of the contribution advantages, especially in terms of streamlining the immigrant cultures make to Australia’s work demands for Gallery Directors, the Touring history; and the pivotal role of art-making and Partnership Organisations and the curators. But associated cultural practices to provide tools of the fixed and final nature of that format fails understanding, recognition and reinterpretation to critically engage with the very nature of the of our relationship to each other and to the world touring process itself. Instead, The Partnershipping we live in. And at each destination, these themes Project model ironically replicated globalised were echoed, re-translated and nuanced by the manufacturing processes, where the product—the personal experiences and communities of the exhibition—is altered and adjusted according to artists involved. each of the four regional destinations. And the changing travelling exhibition was ‘contained’ Pat Hoffie within the very structure that makes globalised trade financially and practically viable—the shipping container. The other material constant across all four iterations of the exhibition was the fleet of eight small boats. These vessels, ‘harvested’ from across Tasmania, offered a wealth of interpretive possibility, and echoed the maritime nature of the world’s very first attempt at global alliances in 1356: the Hanseatic League, a ‘commercial and defensive confederation of European merchant guilds and market towns’ founded to dominate maritime trade in the Baltic until 1862. But The Partnershipping Project’s small fleet of motley vessels also harked to other histories: the immigrant nature of Australia’s non-indigenous invasion/settlement; the tools and craft of colonialism and this era’s fear of arrival of refugees via boats. But beyond the overtly political references, these boats offered the potential for fantasy—as little dreamboats capable of cradling options and possibilities for more sustainable futures. 4 5 Overview | Overview Pat Hoffie Pat Pat Hoffie Pat OVERVIEW TOURING MODEL Touring Model | Touring “The final project was conceived of as much more than a chain of exhibitions—it entailed a process “The collaboration inherent in a partnership is of ongoing assessments, amendments and more than a mere exchange—it is the creation of adjustments arrived at through processes something new, of value, together”.1 that included interaction, intervention, collaboration and consultation”. Who were the partners in this Partnershipping a partnership called the Hanseatic League. By As has been mentioned, the ‘display furniture’ All the way along the journey, documentation Project? They include the artists, the regional ‘partnershipping’, they shared economic gains for the artists’ installations was created through of each exhibition was recorded, so that the gallery directors and their staff, the touring agency while strengthening ties between the countries re-purposing eight little hand-made wooden final exhibition in BRAG featured a video (Contemporary Art Tasmania) representatives, the involved. The long-lasting success of the tenders from Tasmania. This little fleet carried documentary of the project’s various iterations at curators, the designers, the marketers, the funders agreement was based on their willingness to join changing ‘cargo’ in the form of artwork to/for all destinations. Alongside this, a comprehensive (the Australia Council and Visions Australia), the forces in a spirit of reciprocal trust. each of its venues. online catalogue and website documented schools and organisations associated with the individual artist’s