Publishes,

Systems of Solidarity: The urgency of socially-engaged practice,

“Systems of Solidarity: The urgency of socially-engaged practice”
Will Foster, Nuraini Juliastuti, Vanessa Kwan, Timothy Moore and Tien Wei Woon
Date: Wednesday 16 November, 6:30-8pm

Bus Projects presents a discussion on the urgency of socially-engaged practice, as part of our ongoing ‘Systems of Solidarity’ series.

Co-chaired by Professor David Cross and Melbourne based artist Amy Spiers and featuring Will Foster (A Centre for Everything), Nuraini Juliastuti (KUNCI), Vanessa Kwan (Grunt Gallery), Timothy Moore (Sibling), and Tien Wei Woon (Post Museum).

The conscious convergence of art, publics and politics in artists’ practices and organisational structures, represents the most potent argument for arts relevance in a globalised society. In a time of increasing international recognition of the importance of socially engaged and community focussed art practices, Bus Projects brings together a discussion on the many manifestations of such practice in response to the closure of the Centre for Cultural Partnerships at the Victorian College of the Arts.

It is timely to gather together organisations, researchers, and practitioners who are doing exemplary work in this space to knowledge-share with our local audience and to reflect on the crucial importance of community/socially engaged art practice in the current globalised arts ecology.
This discussion takes place at Bus Projects on 16 November, 6:30pm (AEDT). It will be co-chaired by Professor David Cross and Melbourne based artist Amy Spiers, and includes Will Foster (A Centre for Everything), Nuraini Juliastuti (KUNCI), Vanessa Kwan (Grunt Gallery), Timothy Moore (Sibling), and Tien Wei Woon (Post Museum).

Will Foster (UK) is an artist and curator based in Melbourne. His projects have taken form as temporary public artworks, large scale messages, investigative social spaces, exhibitions, research networks and socially-engaged pedagogical programs. Will has carried out major projects in Glasgow, Berlin, Istanbul, Norway and Melbourne and is the founder and co-director of the Wasteland Twinning Network, Cabin Exchange and A Centre for Everything.

Timothy Moore is a director of the architecture office Sibling Architecture. Prior to Sibling, Timothy worked at architecture offices in Melbourne, Amsterdam and Berlin, and as an editor for two influential architecture magazines; Volume and Architecture Australia along with zine, They Shoot Homos Don’t They? He is currently editor of Future West.

Nuraini Juliastuti is a co-founder and director of the KUNCI Cultural Studies Center in Jogja, Indonesia, an organisation aiming at advancing a wider critical movement to cultural issues through popular education practices and experimental approaches.

Vanessa Kwan is a Vancouver-based artist, programmer and curator. She has worked for a number of arts and cultural organizations in recent years, including the Powell Street Festival, Access Artist Run Centre, The Vancouver Queer Film Festival and the Vancouver Art Gallery (where she currently holds a part-time position of Public Programs Coordinator). She has been a guest curator of exhibitions/ events at 221A Artist Run Centre (with Kimberly Phillips), The Richmond Art Gallery, the Powell Street Festival and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Much of her work as an artist has involved the production of work in public space; recent projects include a public artwork called Geyser for Hillcrest Park (with Erica Stocking), Sad Sack, a series of collaborations on the subject of melancholy, and Everything Between Open and Closed, a study of signs. She serves as an active member of Other Sights for Artists’ Projects curatorial collective, and is a founding member of the performance collective Norma, who were honoured with a Mayor’s Arts Award for Public Art in 2011.

Tien Wei Woon is an artist and curator who works and lives in Singapore. He studied at Goldsmith’s College, London. He completed his Doctorate of Creative Arts at Curtin University (2012) where he researched about artistic strategies in Singapore’s Renaissance. He was the President of The Artists Village (2001), co-director and founder of The Danger Museum (since 1998), a founding member of a net art collective tsunamii.net (2001),a co-founder of a curatorial collective p-10 (2002-2008) and co-founder of the cultural and social collective Post-Museum (since 2007). His practice can be seen as collaborations between himself and other individuals/organisations/collectives.

Image: Will Foster, Matthias Einhoff, Lars Hayer and Alex Head (with Lena Obergfell & Saubin Yap) Wasteland Twinning (Wasteland Twinning Ceremony Sydney and Kuala Lumpur, 2012)
Courtesy of Wasteland Twinning Network e.V.
Photo: Matthias Einhoff