A ‘living archive’ as expanded internet artwork about Queensland/Australian artist-run spaces, artist-run initiatives (ARIs) and related artist groupings. As an online and offline community archive this project features the ‘at risk’ artists’ ephemera, hidden histories and marginalised stories about their unique and distinctive cultural heritage. #ari_remix, #extra_zine
Living Archive: ‘Living’ means present, on-going, continuing, unfinished, open-ended’
Hall, S. (2001). Constituting an archive. Third text, 15(54), 89-92
Artworker’s Union Queensland public meeting, held at John Mills Himself artist studios , 40 Charlotte Street, Brisbane Queensland in February 1985. Artists present [clockwise] include convenor Brian Doherty, Paul Andrew, three artists unknown, Peter Anderson, Leah Cotterell, Anna Zsoldos, Sally Hart, Wayne Smith. Photographer unknown.
ABOUT PROJECT ONE : ARI REMIX COMMUNITY ARCHIVES PROJECT (Project One Stages One, Two and Three) – A Queensland Remix transmedia mapping project is a new, bold and unprecedented three-stage, collaborative, interactive study eresource and Web 2.0 artwork.
It’s key aim is mapping the unmapped diversity of the Brisbane and regional Queensland artist-run ecology 1970 to NOW. (Re) Presenting the hidden histories, personal stories, anecdotes, asides and marginalised narratives of artists, activists, artworkers, peers and cohorts who together built upon, extended and broadened the foundations of the 1970s experimental and socially-engaged art ecology. We use a queer ‘ephemera as evidence’ approach.
ARI Remix is conceptualised in a living archives form that is LGBTQIA+, cis, non-binary, trans and BIPOC inclusive, and involves active participation and collaborative collecting engagement by artists, artworkers, co-creatives, peers and artist groups.
As an archival art initiative it is situated as an enthusiast-led, community-based, non-profit and art ephemera study resource and Web 2.0 art work #ariremix. Archival art practices like this collaborative DIY project have significant potential to trouble dominant historical accounts of events.
This project seeks to reclaim, recover, (re)present and make visible these hidden histories and marginalised narratives by artists on their own terms. Lead artist and DIY coordinator Paul Andrew places an emphasis on queer and queered narratives as queer is often understood to be an ongoing process of becoming. This emphasis enables the collective pursuit of social justice and cultural justice through art and altered artists’ ephemera resources.
The memory work we perform at the ARI Remix is made entirely possible through immense kindness, generosity, volunteerism and collaborative collecting efforts of over 1200 Australian artists and significant arts philanthropy.
The ARI Remix collective acknowledges and respects the traditional and ongoing custodians of the lands where we live, make and work. We pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. We support the Uluru statement from the heart.
In November 2012 we started an open-group social media page to help connect and reconnect with Australian artists involved in artist-run culture. This social media group was motivated by both the development of the Ephemeral Traces exhibition and an independent but complementary online documentary project.
Please join the ongoing discussion on the Australian ARI Living Archives – Queensland Artist-Run Heritage 1970 to NOW open-group forum here:
Australian ARI Living Archives – Queensland Artist-Run Heritage 1970 to NOW
ARI REMIX PRESENTS “SELF-MADE, ARTIST-RUN” A NEW ZINE-BASED ARCHIVAL ART INITIATIVE “THE EXTRA ZINE PROJECT” | feat. 25 ARTISTS, 25 ZINES [2022-2024] | An ARI Zine Anthology
“Artist-Run Stories. Archives. Information. Ideas. Inspiration. For everyone”
PROJECT TWO STAGE ONE
CURRENTLY IN PROGRESS:
May 2022 – May 2024
CULTURAL ADVICE: Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and other First Nations people are advised that this archival initiative contains names, recordings and images of deceased people and other content that may be culturally sensitive. Please also be aware that you may see certain words or descriptions in this online archival project which reflect the author’s attitude or that of the period in which the item was created and may now be considered offensive.
PROJECT ONE | Stage One & Stage Two (March 2011 – December 2019) and PROJECT TWO | Stage One (May 2022 – June 2024) of this project are supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and have been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Project One Stage Three of this project (January 2020 to December 2021) was supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
Note about approach: “Generally speaking, remix culture can be defined as the global activity consisting of the creative and efficient exchange of information made possible by digital technologies that is supported by the practice of cut/copy and paste. The concept of Remix often referenced in popular culture derives from the model of music remixes which were produced around the late 1960s and early 1970s in New York City, an activity with roots in Jamaica’s music.[1] Today, Remix (the activity of taking samples from pre-existing materials to combine them into new forms according to personal taste) has been extended to other areas of culture, including the visual arts; it plays a vital role in mass communication, especially on the Internet”- sourced: https://remixtheory.net/?page_id=3
ARI Remix https://remix.org.au is an online community-based activist archive representing the hidden histories, voices, records and networks of the Australian artist-run ecology.
Brisbane independent and DIY artist-run practices have a long history stemming back to the intersectional Barjai and Miya Studio artist co-operatives in the 1943 to 1947 WW2 and post-war period. ARI Remix began as an expanded and collective DIY artist response to preliminary discussions with curator Peter Anderson in March 2011 for a then proposed 2016 exhibition to be held at the University of Queensland Art Museum. You can read more about ephemeral traces: brisbane’s artist-run scene in the 1980s here:
http://www.artmuseum.uq.edu.au/ephemeral-traces-brisbanes-artist-run-scene-1980s
ARI Remix is imagined as an ongoing, unfinished and incomplete archive one which draws on the ‘at risk’ art ephemera being cared for by individuals in their private artist archives. Collaborative collecting and personal storytelling informs this project and helps to make previously inaccessible artists’ ephemera accessible and easily discoverable.
As a starting point initial informal analogue and digital research began in March 2011 by reconnecting with many of the artists who actively operated Brisbane and Queensland regional artist-run spaces during the 1980s and who were/are the custodians of private artist/ARI archives about this period.
In November 2012 a social media open group was instigated to enable a dialogic approach to both the exhibition project and what was first imagined as a complimentary and independent DIY feature online documentary project. The ephemeral traces exhibition was the first significant survey and introduction to the buried histories five of Brisbane’s 1980s artist-run spaces and the ARI Remix Project developed throughout 2013 and 2014 into an expanded view of Brisbane and regional Queensland’s artist-run sector. In March 2015 the remix.org.au site was launched online on the WordPress platform. As a Queensland based initiative it was important not just to (re)present Brisbane and Queensland-based ARI culture but to include intersectional narratives, profiles and accounts interstate and nationally. You can read more on the social media page research and participation here :
Please join the social media conversation and if you are interested please post your comments, memories and insights directly to the ARI Remix archives in the threads below many of the posts located at www.remix.org.au, as we hope that the project can continue to be an affecting polyvocal experience.
We gratefully acknowledge all the DIY enthusiasts, archivists, activists, artists, co-creatives, artist-runs and personal storytellers who are kindly participating in the realisation of this project throughout Stages One, Two and Three.
Please note: This ABOUT page is generally updated quarterly – next update is September 2021 – Take Care during this Covid experience and stay safe.
PROJECT ONE STAGE ONE
ARTIST (Re) PRESENTING COLLABORATIONS & ARCHIVAL ACTVITIES INCLUDING:
Peter Anderson, Jeffrey Gibson, Tim Gruchy, Barbara Campbell, Adam Boyd, Virginia Barratt, Dee Martin, John Jiggens, Dianne Heenan, John Waller, Angelina Martinez, Michelle Andringa, Jay Younger, Sally Hart, Jim Knox, Diena Georgetti, Linda Dement, Jasmine Hirst, Jeanelle Hurst, Lehan Ramsay, Hiram To, Russell Lake, Adam Wolter, Ted Riggs, John Willsteed, Bryan Spencer, Robert Whyte, Anne Jones, Irena Luckus, Nicholas Zurbrugg, Gary Warner, Dale Chapman, Belinda Gunn, Steven Grainger, Martyn Sommer, Paul Andrew, Maria Filippow, Joanna Kambourian, Racheal Bruhn, Deborah Long, Deborah Fenwick, Anna Zsoldos, Jane Richens, Simon Reptile, Sue Palmer, Chris Feld, Brian Doherty, Kieran Knox, Feral Sound, Robert Munday, John Douglas, Rebekah Fogarty, John Stafford, Brendan Smith, Luke Roberts, Barbara Heath, Sheridan Kennedy, Bronwyn Clark-Coolee, Urszula Szulakowska, Peter Anderson, Ivan Nunn, Malcolm Enright, Ruth Propsting, Lindy Collins, Lindy Johnson, Rebecca Chapman, Jenny Chirnside, Ross Thompson, Donald Holt, Kenn Bushby, Fleur MacDonald, Wendy Mills, Lyndall Milani, Jose Macalino, Kate White, Toyo Tsuchiya, Philip Dean, Christine Turner, Ross Wallace, Gus Eagleton, Travis Dewan, Cassie Doyle, Richard Stringer, Louise Rollman, Leah Cottrell, Joanna Kambourian, Mervyn Moriarty, Julie Barratt, Sue Barratt, Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox, Elsie Brimblecombe, Jon Adams, Claire Adams, Kent Johnson, Brad Pimm, Carl Warner, Shane Kneipp, Jay Dea Lopez, Ian McIntosh, Mark Ross, Chris Stannard, Robyn MacDonald, Doug Spowart, Cassie Doyle, Jac Bates, David Don, David Stafford, Anna Zsoldos, John Douglas, John Willsteed, Robert Munday, Carl Warner…and many more…
Australian (Queensland) ARIs Profiles, collaborations, participants , acknowledgements and links including:
PAST:
Barjai Co-operative, Miya Studio Co-operative, Brisbane School of Art, EastAus Art School, Flying Art School, Red Comb House, Brisbane Community Arts Centre, E.M.U, Jewell Palace, Imagery Gallery, Art Walk Magazine, Art Wonder Stories, ZIP Collective, A Room, One Flat South Brisbane, One Flat George Street, Belltower Studios, No Names (Guest Curated IMA 1982), O’Flate Studios, The Observatory Collective, That Space (That Collective), That Annexe, John Mills National, John Mills National Annexe, John Mills Himself Artist Studios, Artworker’s Union Queensland, Queensland Artworkers Alliance (QAA), Entrepot, Versions Magazine, SCAM Magazine, Jumbo, Oblivion (Festival of Ephemeral Arts), Eyeline Magazine, UQ Activities ( UQ Student Union), That Annexe,The Campfire Room, Crux, Breathing Concrete, AXIS Art Projects (Art eXtremists International Syndicate), [Bureau] Artspace, Arch Lane Public Art, Black Banana Poster Collective, Poets Union QLD, Anarchists Union, Outdoor Art Drive In, Interface Project 88 – City As A Work of Art, Galerie Brutal, Cement Box Theatre UQ, Schonell Theatre UQ, La Boite Theatre – Hale Street, Milton (Raw Roar etc), Space 90, Brisbane Independent Film Collective (BIF), Film Facts Collective, John Mills Annexe, GlamourPussy, The Paint Factory, Fluba Troupe, AGLASSOFWATER, Young Artists Gallery (M.O.C.A), Blunt Focus Cinema Collective, BAFStudio, Chasm, Margaret Street Artist Studios, Loch Street Artist Studios, Little Roma Street Artist Studios, Flaming Star, Art Cast, 2D Design, Clout, Cane Toad Times 2nd Collective, 4ZZZ Public Radio ( 4ZZZ Radio Times) , Inkahoots, MacTaggarts Woolstores, Dada Le Tarte, BAT Channel, The Billboard Project, Fine Arts Society UQ, State of the Art: Art of the State (Forgan Smith Tower UQ), Order By Numbers, The Photographers Gallery, Little Roma Street Festival, Chi Chi Deluxe, Janice Claxton Dance Studios, Le Scoops, Aromas Cafe, Puzzles Café,Talk It Down, Drippy Taps, Q Space Q Space Annexe, The Studios St Mary’s Kangaroo Point, F.Art, The Future Now, Tropical Artist Guild, Satellite Space…
PRESENT:
The Laundry Art Space, Boxcopy, BNE Art, The Brisbane Collective, Fake Estate, ORAL ARI, Cut Thumb, Kontraband Studios, BARI Festival 2016, Raygun Projects, Kunstbunker, InResidence ARI, Aggregate, Reflex, The Walls, DAAO…
EMERGING:
The Laundry Artspace, Clutch Collective, InResidence ARI
We are truly grateful for testimonies and letters of support for the research and development for Stage One from many people including Andrew McNamara, Queensland University of Technology, Peter Anderson, Michele Helmrich, University of Queensland Art Museum, Gillian Fuller, Luke Roberts, Russell Lake, Professor Ross Harley UNSW, Professor Jay Younger, Queensland College of Art, Adam Boyd, Sally Hart, Sarah Follent, Jeanelle Hurst, Travis Dewan, BNE Art, Eyeline Magazine, Queensland College of Art Griffith University, Kath Kerswell, Beth Jackson, Lismore Art Space, Ms Browns Lounge, Joanna Kambourian, State Library of Queensland, University of Queensland Art Museum, State Library of New South Wales, Joan Sheriff…
email: info [at] remix.org.au
Completed December 2019
PROJECT ONE STAGE TWO
Participating activists, artists, archivists, collectors, entrepreneurs, musicians, writers, designers, publishers, media professionals, curators, GLAM sector colleagues and co-creatives including;
ARTIST COLLABORATIONS:
Angelina Martinez, Martyn Sommer, Jacklyn Bates, David Don, Brisbane Street Art Festival, Travis Dewan, BARI Festival, Troy-Anthony Baylis, Steven Alderton, The Shared Camera, Caitlin Franzmann, Shane Kneipp, Shehab Uddin, Ian McIntosh, Sally Hart, Tobias De Maine, Sally Hart, Jane Richens, Lucinda Elliott, Ian McIntosh, Brian Doherty, Jane Richens, Peter Breen, Stephen Jones, Jac Dyson, Erena Mercer, Kinly Grey, Lu Forsberg, Callum McGrath, Annie Winter, Rod Bunter, David Broker, Linda Wallace, Tayla Haggarty, Anna MacMahon, Madeline Bishop, John Waller, Stephen Jones, Meagan Mendels, Sharon Jewell, Casselle Mountford, Barbara Campbell, Richard Mansfield, Niko Velutic, Adam Donovan, Simone Eisler, Kevin Wilson, Brian Doherty, Joanna Kambourian, Dennic McCart, Susie Forster, Elysha Rei, Jon & Claire Adams, Hollie, Paul Andrew, Erika Scott, Charlie Hillhouse, Jennifer Riggs, Hollie, Helen Lai, Matt Dabrowski, Shehab Uddin, Roz Craig, Evelyn Hartogh and many others.
Australian (Queensland) ARIs Profiles, collaborations, participants, acknowledgements and links including:
ARIs
PAST
Including Jugglers Artspace, Pop Gallery – QCA Changes 40 Years, Lismore Artspace, The Soylent Spot, PAST, Made Creative Space, Modus Studios, No.9, Process, Omniscient Collective, Trance Plant, Ruth Francis Studio, Light Street Studio, Terrace Street Studio, Queensland Artworkers Alliance Artist Studios, Accidentally Annie Street Space (AASS), Union Street Gallery, Dog Art Space, Doggett Street Studios, The Butterfactory (Dayboro), Umbrella Studio, The Hold Artspace, Whitebox Gallery, Soapbox Gallery, Spring Hill Gallery, wandA, Secuumb Art Space, Kiss My Art, ISN’T, Bartleme Galleries, Boulder Lodge Concepts, [Q]ARI, The Wandering Room, Infozone, The White House, Raw Space, Space Plentitude, The Farm, Man Bites Pumpkin, No Frills*, Witchmeat ARI, INHOUSE ARI, One Place After Another, Corflute ARI, Lines in the Sand, Addition, Love Love Studio, Inbetweenspace, The Tidy, Moreton Street Space Room (MSSR), Flipbook, Thoughtforms, McWhirters Artspace, Vegas Spray, Atomic Workshop, Smith + Stoneley, The Fort, Diagram, Current Projects, Bland People Die, Spring Hill Gallery, Omniscient Collective, Galerie Brutal, In Residence ARI, Kunstbunker, The Laundry Art Space, Clutch Collective, BARI Festival, Level, ISN’T, Modus Studios, Process, Cut Thumb ARI, Video Access Centre Brisbane, White Box, Busybric ARI and many others.
PRESENT
Including Boxcopy, The Soylent Spot, Outer Space ARI
EMERGING
Including Wreckers Artspace, The Laundry Artspace, Stable, XYZ ARI, dumb dumb ARI
Australian (NT, TAS, SA, WA, VIC, NSW) ARIs Profiles, participants, acknowledgements and links.
We are truly grateful for testimonies, expressions of interest and letters of support from artists including Luke Roberts, Simone Eisler, Kevin Wilson, Matt Malone, Tricia Dobson, Maria Cleary, Sharon Jewell, Tobias De Maine, Franz Ehmann, Adam Donovan, Luke Roberts, Matt Dabrowski, Scott Whittaker, Allyson Reynolds, Sally Hart, Maria Filippow and from kind and generous supporters, curators, writers and academics including Michele Helmrich, Peter Anderson, Jay Younger, IMA, Jennifer Riggs, Helen Lai, Asia Art Publishing, Monash Centre Prato CIRN Conference 2017, RESAW 2019, Louise Denoon among many others…
PROJECT ONE STAGE THREE
Participating activists, artists, entrepreneurs, musicians, writers, designers, publishers, media professionals, curators, GLAMR sector colleagues and co-creatives including;
ARTIST COLLABORATIONS:
Joanna Kambourian, Evelyn Hartogh, Edwina Shaw, Joanna Kambourian, Shehab Uddin, Jean Bowra, Next Door ARI, Elysha Rei, Alex Stalling, Doug Spowart, Victoria Cooper, Tim Gruchy, Gary Warner, Natasha Wills, Kristian Glynn, TRASHISH, Jeremy Staples, Angela Bailey, Matt Malone, Matt Dabrowksi, Angelina Martinez, John Griffin, Paul Andrew, Women’s Art Register, Ella Callander, Abigail Rutter, Joaquin Gonzales, Amelia McLeish, Kimberly Stokes, Courtney Harmel, Joanne Choueiri, John Waller, Erika Scott, Peter Anderson, Richard Stringer, Jane Skeer, David M. Thomas, Hiram To, Roberta Joy Rich, Mic Gruchy, Stephen Jones, Brooke Ferguson, Lehan Ramsay, Luke Roberts, John Waller, EXTRA Zine, Melbourne Art Book Fair 2020 & 2021, Annie Long, Betty Russ, Michael Donnelly, MAT 2021, Louise Curham, Damian Eckersley, Louise Rollman, Meat Mirror, Jay Younger, Lisa O’Neill, among many others…
Australian (Queensland) ARIs Profiles, collaborations, participants, acknowledgements and links including:
ARIs
PAST
The Photographers Gallery, Made Creative Toowoomba, Art Wonder Stories, AXIS Art Projects, Union Street Gallery, Art Walk, Dancing Bear, ISNT, QAA, [BUREAU] Artspace, Edwina Bartleme Gallery, Tinygold, The Field ARI among many others.
PRESENT
Centre for Regional Art Practice (C.R.A.P), Copier Jam, Trashish, People Who Make Things And Think About Stuff, Women’s Art Register, ‘coloured TM’, Sonic Sketchbooks, The Brothers Gruchy, Boulder Lodge Concepts, Fag Bar, Valley Fiveways Gallery, Brisbane Pride Rally, Brisbane Pride March, Melbourne Art Book Fair, Elevator ARI, Open Weave, Back Lane Gallery among many others.
EMERGING
Next Door ARI, EXTRA Zine, Anthem ARI
Ongoing | Australian (NT, TAS, SA, WA, VIC, NSW) ARIs Profiles, participants, acknowledgements and links.
We are truly grateful for testimonies, expressions of interest and letters of support from artists including David Broker, Louise Curham, Luke Roberts, Simone Eisler, Kevin Wilson, Sarah Follent, Jay Younger, Jacklyn Young among many others…
Living Archives- Queensland Artist-Run Heritage 1980 – NOW https://www.facebook.com/groups/451268288264701
ARI Remix Project – Living Archives, Artist-Runs Past Present Future https://www.facebook.com/ariremixproject
Instagram #ariremix
Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/remix-org-au
Vimeo https://vimeo.com/channels/1032743/129531628
You Tube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5iLyGaOmKYYlPhXLTEBn9HoCuChmoJAv
Pinterest
https://www.pinterest.com.au/ariremixlivingarchivesproject
Independent – Web Archiving – courtesy of Internet Archive WayBackMachine https://web.archive.org/web/*/remix.org.au
Cofounder, DIY Coordinator, Artist, Paul Andrew
Artist/Designer, Joanna Kambourian (Lismore Artspace 2008-2018, Ms Browns Lounge)
Many artists and peers have been generous mentors, directly and indirectly during the initial research and set up on the remix.org.au archives throughout 2011 – 2015 including artists Joanna Kambourian, Linda Dement, Sarah Waterson, Liz Stokes, John Tonkin, Brian Doherty, Jane Richens, Virginia Barratt, Gillian Fuller, Jay Younger and many others.
issuu.com/ari-remix/docs/ari-remix-issue-1-the-scene-issuu
Editors – Brian Doherty & Jane Richens
email: info [at] remix.org.au
This information below are now archived January 2021 please contact the project now at the above email address.
Collective or social memories are shaped by social, economic and political circumstances; by beliefs and values; by opposition and resistance. They involve cultural norms and issues of authenticity, identity and power. They are implicated in ideologies. Social memories are associated with or belong to particular categories or groups so they can be, and often are, the focus of conflict and contestation. They can be discussed and negotiated, accepted or rejected. Collective memories are expressed in a variety of ways. They create interpretive frameworks that help make experience comprehensible. They are marked by a dialectic between stability or historical continuities and innovations or change.
Jacob Climo and Maria Cattell, eds., Social Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives (Walnut Creek, CA:Altamira Press, 2002),4.
noun. An artist-run initiative is any project run by visual artists to present their and others’ projects. They might approximate a traditional art gallery space in appearance or function, or they may take a markedly different approach, limited only by the artist’s understanding of the term. …“Artist-run means initiating exchange; emphasizing cross and inter-disciplinary approaches to making art; developing networks; through curation, putting creative ideas and arguments into action”
Catalyst Arts (1996), Life/Live, Paris: Musée d’Art Moderne, p. 45
“To borrow a definition from LIFT (London International Festival of Theatre), the ‘living’ archive’s aim is not to bury the past in boxes or databases for posterity, but to “unearth fresh forms of thinking from what has gone before” (2010, online). The ‘living’ component of this archival framework is thus twofold: on the one hand it is about access as it encourages researchers to make connections between materials and to map out their own archival journeys in hopes of “revealing new ways of looking at the future by examining the past” (LIFT 2010, online). On the other hand, it is also about survival, in opposition to death, loss, and destruction, by way of engaging with the traces and remnants that live on. But just what constitutes digital traces online and how traces are retrieved remains one of the dominant conundrums of the online archive…”
( http://archinodes.com/node/168)
A living archive has myriad affordances, Eric Ketelaar among others, also consider a living archive ‘as a place of contestation’ (Ketelaar, 2009 p.110), the author cites what Hayden White describes as a space where ‘different kinds of discourse about what happened and what is to be done’( White cited in Ketelaar, 2009, p110).From an artist perspective it is a metaphor that is fluid, fecund and denotes living memory, a way of strategizing around rethinking and re-representing local history, social memory and artist records for a new public.
Website copyright information.
This website contains information, data, documents, pages, photographs, audio, video and images (‘the material’) prepared by the ARI Remix Project which is a collaborative memory and living archives project of Queensland /Australia 1980-NOW artist-run heritage and culture for the purposes of documenting the vibrant, diverse, neglected and under-valued and un-valued DIY collaborations of the region.
Kindly include your contact details, provenance details, contextual information, appropriate credits, url links, tags and acknowledgements or if you prefer kindly request for its removal from the archive. Thanks for your interest, enthusiasm and shared passion for helping us redress the blind spot of artist-run heritage in the local global arts and culture canon, thanks for reading, thanks for your care, your attention and for participating, thanks for sharing in the spirit of open-source social and cultural change and digital community engagement and strengthening.
Artist-run spaces, places, projects and initiatives have long been sites of both precarity and impact for the shared professional development of artists; groups, collectives and informal associations, artists together working for artists, for growing audience engagement and for public activation of knowledge about the diversity of contemporary art practices. Here using a polyvocal approach and the re-iterating of ephemera, digital storytelling and resources we share something of Australia’s participatory heritage in the artist-run field since the countercultural 1970s as a small way of tempering, altering, transforming, critiquing and nuancing the official or dominant narratives that have long told the stories of contemporary art, community participation and social histories.
In the popular imagination 1980’s Queensland is often touted as the “Police State” years, a decade of menace during the final leg of an oppressive twenty-year right wing regime. Queensland under the Joh Bjelke-Petersen Government was known locally, nationally and internationally for many things, most particularly for its inappropriate police powers and extensive police brutalities, for citizen disappearances, for deaths in custody, for state-sanctioned disavowal of dissent, disavowal of community consultation and collaboration, for its hubris surrounding truthful media reportage and public accountability, for its gross disregard of civil liberties and human rights, for wrongful imprisonment, for its vehement disregard for refugees, disregard for racial diversity, for transgender politics, for homosexuality, for feminism, for migration, for refugees and perhaps most pernicious of all, for its anti-integration and apartheid policies, its desecration of the social and ecological frameworks that formed the cornerstone of an ancient living aboriginal heritage at the heart of Queensland’s ancient, rich, diverse arts and culture history.
It is during this era that artist-run spaces proliferated as never before, and this living archive we are participating in now is beginning to slowly gather together and share, testimonies, artist interviews, ephemera and resources to map and remix the 1980-Now artist-run scene and to begin to understand something of it’s impact on diversifying the arts ecology we know today.