The Melbourne South Ways roundtable invites artists, writers, craftspersons and designers who would like to actively participate in a constructive forum about alternative practices and spaces for ethical art.

This event responds to the following developments:

• Issue of funding for arts events such as the Sydney Biennale
• Unacknowledged appropriation of other cultures, such as the PAM installation at Melbourne Now
• Creative practices that incorporate production processes in the gallery
• The concept of ‘ecological knowledge’ that frames ideas in terms of interests involved:

“preference must be given to the form of knowledge that guarantees the greatest level of participation to the social groups involved in its design, execution, and control and in the benefits of the intervention.” (Santos, 2007)

It brings a range of views together around the following questions:

• How much should we know about what’s inside the gallery?
  • Economic situation
  • Who made the art?
  • How does this knowledge affect the art?
  • Does openness in art have a different value than openness in other areas, like commerce, science or sport?

Participants are invited to:

• Present an example of creative practice that reveals the circumstances of its production
• Read Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2007. “Beyond Abyssal Thinking: From Global Lines to Ecologies of Knowledges.” Eurozine. July 26.

Results of the roundtable can be found here. 

Resources

A bibliography is available on the Zotero platform here. You can also follow the thread on Google Plus.

Creative practices to consider: links

Presented in association with Gertrude Contemporary and RMIT Art Cities Transformation Research Centre.