Climbing the BRAG Summit

Helen and Naomie participated in the Summit held at the Bunbury Regional Art Galleries on Saturday.

Interesting to hear David Bromfield and Pippa Tandy's approach to selecting works for the 2010 survey. The set about subscribing a meta-narrative to the studio visit process and resulting exhibition to speak of  how a sense of place infuses each individual artist's practice thereby creating a unifying whole. At least a whole for a sensible critique of a collection of works.

In many ways the artists of the south west region are no different from most other areas in that it can be a bit like herding cats without a central narrative core of focus to drive or dispel artistic purpose. For this reason one felt that any overarching theme applied to artists of this region extremely hazardous. There is no doubt, from a writer's point of view that to generalise or link commonalities across practice presents a nice package to write around and perspective to critique from. 'Tis our human nature to want to categorise and generalise to make sense of experience so one cannot be too harsh - perhaps the sheer diversity of the region has more to do with artist background, time lived in the region and purpose for being here... but one quibbles statistical analysis, not necessarily the purpose? 

I wonder how the results would differ had P & D the opportunity to do similar projects in other areas?

Nevertheless, opportunity to exhibit, connection with other artists, organised networking and critical writing were the general themes that seemed to present themselves as much-needed in our area. (no longer is it kosher to be a 'regional artist' or a 'south west artist' - apparently these terms are somewhat prescriptive and limiting... the play with semantics continues... you may consider us artists from the south west or living in a regional context however)  Some great ideas were tossed about in the south west artist salad, oh, excuse moi, the salad tossed by the artists who happen to live in the south west but may not necessarily be south west artists! haha ha! Anyone seen MOnty Python lately?

More on tea towel production next...