A very tardy post about highlights of the Impact7 http://impact7.org.au/ printmaking conference at Monash University.
The conference was full-on, lots to see and hear – very stimulating but exhausting.
Some of my highlights – a paper by Macushla Robinson about Bea Maddock’s Being and Nothingness, a work in which Maddock transcribed part of Sartre’s text as homage. She referred to Benjamin who talked of reading a text as like flying over a landscape, but transcribing it like walking through the landscape; coming to know it through the action of the body (phenomenologically).
Paul Coldwell’s keynote discussion of the folio of prints as a means of exploration of the series, sequence and variation…particularly fascinating were Henry Moore’s Elephant Skull and Paula Rego’s Nursery Rhymes.
Mike Parr wasn’t able to appear but a video of him working on huge etching plates nailed to the wall with an angle grinder was pretty amazing and his printer, John Loane, talked about their collaboration over the years.
I was looking forward to Johanna Drucker’s talk, but the skype was a bit problematic and her focus was on ephemeral, online, performance/hybrid/new media works which wasn't really what I was hoping for.
Listened to Sarah Bodman speak twice – once at the State Library on the night before the conference and she was interesting – gave an overview of the range of artists’ book practice internationally rather than anything terribly challenging or theoretical. She is very enthusiastic and active.
Found lots to inspire and incite.
There was also lots of work to look at – lots of exhibitions on campus as well as open folio presentations each day…besides all the exhibitions around Melbourne. Familiar Unfamiliar, curated by Rona Green, at C3 was a highlight. http://c3artspace.blogspot.com/
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