Generation: Plenary Reflections on the South Project

By  Pamela Zeplin (Australia)

The following is an expanded version of a shorter Plenary address given at the South Project Gathering in Santiago, October 6 2006.

Buenos tardes.  Before beginning, I wish to acknowledge the  indigenous Mapuche people of this land who so warmly welcomed us with a Rogativa at Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho on Tuesday evening.

Thank you to the South Project, with particular appreciation to Magdalena Moreno, Kevin Murray and Nicki Harvey for the invitation to participate in this Gathering.

This remarkable team, as we approach the close of the third South gathering, has successfully pulled off more than a few miracles. Chilean hospitality has been especially warm and convivial; never have I experienced so much kissing and embracing at a conference or art event. Nor have I felt so strongly the need and desire to learn more about a host culture.

Mapuche Rogativa at opening of South Project, Santiago, 2006

As I launch into the daunting task of attempting to encapsulate some of this South Project’s significant - and less significant moments – I feel, like many of you, a little overwhelmed. And exhausted but somewhat elated, too. We have encountered an immensely diverse and rich field of discussion and observation, as well as other performative, ceremonial and social exchanges. My thoughts therefore are offered amidst a blur of more than thirty presentations (in addition to chairs’ addresses, workshops and discussions) over three days - all in bi-lingual translation and the inevitable incommensurability and slippage this entails. This has been further intensified by craft and art exhibitions, gala events, informal conversation and (too much) wonderful food. Not surprisingly, some of these comments will be metaphorically - and literally - of the ‘motherhood’ kind, which will become more evident towards the end of my remarks.

As I try and think my way through some of the currents, streams and eddies whirling around us over the past three days, these comments may lack sharp definition, reflecting a personal, partial and perhaps raw, perspective with an Australian inflection. More considered reflection will come later. In the meantime, my panel colleagues, Ian Wedde and Carlos Capelan will, I am sure, provide fuller and perhaps contesting views. Nevertheless, I hope my immediate response can be read, not just within the frame of this event but across the broader context of the South Project over the past three years and the undeniable momentum that has been sustained. Hopefully, too, my thoughts, which are more about attitude than latitude, will provide a useful basis for considering future directions, particularly in the broader structural ways South approaches Johannesburg.

From the outset, it must be re-stated, as Kwezi Gule and Pat Hoffie have pointed out – and this especially applies to those of us with the wherewithall to fly in and out of Chile - we all form part of a privileged group, the ‘lucky turkeys’ as Kwezi would have it. In reflecting upon where South might now ‘be at’, as against where it is ‘coming from’, to quote Jon Bywater, we have, whether travelling from above or below the Tropic of Capricorn, been fortunate to encounter yet another richly different set of experiences and concepts of what South may be.

Since 2004 the good ship South Project has become a vast and at times unwieldy entity, moving across the South. Indeed, its directionality may more accurately be described as oscillatory; it is not always, but mostly, lateral in nature but tends to subvert conventional notions of one way or direct return travel. Like its complicated trajectory, the temporary ‘institutionality’ of South as an enterprise is often contradictory, sometimes conciliatory but never, I think, congratulatory or that other rhyming word beginning with ‘m’ that we often encounter in so many well meaning but pretentiously idealistic art events!

In this way, the project that we inhabit resembles less a kind of cultural cruise ship than a gigantic artistic amoeba that is constantly in flux according to its changing contours and contexts. Mercifully, we are aboard an enterprise without, to mix metaphors, a manifest(o) or a specified flight plan. There is, of course, a steady administrative rudder steering the project, buoyed up by practical ‘sea-worthiness’ in terms of accumulated, cross-cultural experience, combined with an increasing regard for theoretical navigation.  

South Project participants at Pablo Neruda house, Valparaiso, 2006

To some extent, therefore, more than half way through its five year life-span, a certain amount orf plain sailing may now be anticipated.  Not too much, though, I hope, since the unexpected has always been embraced by South Project journeys, notwithstanding the immanent possibility of unusually adverse conditions. Such a ‘mission’ is therefore vulnerable to collapse, constantly in danger of foundering on the rocks of political politeness, artistic arrogance, administrative encumbrance and/or bureaucratic bullying. So far, South Project’s meandering course has managed to steer clear of such major hazards.

Which brings me to the idea of history and memory that suffused so many presentations here in Santiago and in previous Gatherings. The longer term project is not defined by what happens in this city alone and, in informing ourselves of South’s own history and its longer but generally invisible genealogical heritage, I am reminded by Maori colleagues that ‘the past is always in front of us’. To guide our futures, we need to make stories of the South visible or they and the people, places and politics that constituted them will disappear within one or two generations. Latin American history dramatically offers us the lesson that our children need to know about their past, as evidenced by the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende and through moving presentations by Marcelo Brodsky and Ticio Escabar, while some of Indigenous Australia’s ghosts have been graphically exhumed by Ivan Sehn and Tony Birch.  It is especially important for older South afficionados like myself to remember this is not a project that evolves in a sequential sense, of ‘dealing’ with issues and then ‘moving on’. It constantly needs to repeat and re-invigorate a number of common concerns, many of which are born of and perpetuate various forms of colonialism.

I am grateful to Ian Wedde for reminding me that we need to be patient and respectful towards those discovering these histories for the first time. In being able to fold back in upon itself, the South Project avoids the syndrome of ‘been there, done that’ that characterises so many western intellectual enterprises.

Poster for Transversa project, Santiago, 2006

Having claimed value for our (often missing) southerly chronicles, it is inevitable that the South Project itself should and will disappear in 2008, if not sooner. As an entity, it is scheduled to self-destruct and this planned obsolescence represents a necessary principle of renewal. Just like the people who invent and populate them, art enterprises have a limited life expectancy. What should not be lost with the inevitable demise of such organisations, however, are their histories, their traces and the all-important connections between people, so we may connect through time, learn from what did and did not occur and, crucially, not have to reinvent the paddle. Most of all, the momentum generated by earlier exchanges should not go astray.

Here I will look back briefly to a significant genealogy of the South Project itself where its artistic ancestors from the 1970s to the 1990s celebrated regionality across the Asia-Pacific. This took place firstly between Australian and New Zealand artists at Mildura Sculpture Triennials, and ANZART, then predominantly South East Asian artists through (ARX) Artists’ Regional Exchanges from 1987 to 1998. From 1993 Queensland Art Gallery’s Asia-Pacific Triennials of Contemporary Art erroneously claimed ‘invention’ of regional exchange in the south (not including Latin America) while drawing heavily on networks of these successful but undocumented artist-driven organisations. However, their collaborative and socially engaged connections, particularly in New Zealand and the Pacific, were swamped by new agendas influenced by burgeoning Asian economies.

Without access to this history, expensive and time-consuming new knowledge and apparatus had to be cranked up by the South Project to re-establish lost momentum. One of the lessons that should have been, and I hope continues to be, heeded concerns state-funded demands of professionalisation and cultural diplomacy. Earlier regionalist efforts faltered and sank because they were required to throw overboard the informality inherent in their structures – the very core of their artistic success. This directly relates to Tina Barton’s account of Jim Allen, one of the prime movers of trans-Tasman exchange. Greatly admired, Jim was an Antipodean legend of Non-object art but his legacy remains almost documented. So one of my concerns following our own beautifully polished event is that South Project doesn’t become too respectable so it can retain what Ticio Escabar terms ‘oscillation’ between mainstream contemporary art apparatus and those more radical, messy practices. It was perversely comforting to see this spirit alive and well in the local artist’s surprise ‘intervention’ during official speeches at MAC the other night.

So, how do we maintain support for artists’ voices yet continue the difficult debate that actively challenges their role and operation in mainstream art practice? Disappointingly, this issue was barely addressed, partly due to minimal participation in discussions by Trans Versa artists and curators who nevertheless comprised a significant exchange component of the program between New Zealand, Australia and Chile. Notwithstanding apparently successful local collaborations, did the white cube of career aspiration take precedence over broader critical engagement by the visitors? We learned very little of those cross-cultural interactions because artists at this event occupied one ‘bubble’ while discussions occupied another. Haven’t we got over that binary of artists versus writers and theorists? As Damien Wright asked, how are our practices really changed or at least seriously challenged by this experience?

Compared to previous South Gatherings, this split began to look like the kind of navigational error that could potentially diminish the project to the status of R&D for established global circuits and/or nurturing yet another crop of emerging career artists. While these functions may also be desirable, we need to treasure the ‘ubuntu’ characterising South Project and which Mbuelo Mzamane explained at the first Gathering in 2004 as ‘a re-humanisation of our practices to embrace humbleness’.

At the previous session, the ‘Response Workshop’, I heard much discussion about what the South Project ‘should’ continue to provide for artists. With Johannesburg looming large, I did not hear how participants might give back or take responsibility for these new projects’ continuation and expansion – without reliance on the South organisation, or what I would term ‘South Central’. Informally, Tina Barton had proposed de-centralised residencies etc, at institutions such as Museo del Barro and avoid dependence on South Project as an organisational hub. Like a wise parent, ‘South Central’ could thus slip away, having generated self-sustaining and interdependent ‘cells’ throughout the South. Many of these already exist within Latin America.

Speaking of parenting. I will now conclude with a few words about the future - where this past awaits our children. We have heard a lot about children at this event. They have, it should be remembered, always been included in larger South Project as artists and are currently participating in a satellite project in Chiloe schools. There are children attending here in Santiago and they also populate many presentations – as missing, stolen, overboard, recalled in Peruvian finger puppets, networked through Sam Carter’s international project, forming part of Loni Hutchison’s residency and collectively evoked in broader celebrations of play and spontaneity.

Jim Allen knew the value of working with children in Maori communities and used this experience to create a new model for radical contemporary art. He understood that children were a resource for society, not merely a separate domain of immature beings. If we really want to promote new practices that generate radical ways of re-conceptualising societies in and of the South, I think it’s about time we seriously considered drawing upon and including children.

Fiona Jack, mural detail. Transversa project, Santiago, 2006

Generally speaking, children are uncool, a nuisance in the nuclear paradigm of Anglo Saxon culture and particularly in the art world, just as old people are, even though we can learn so much from both generations. In contrast, it has been heartening, even during my short visit to Santiago and Rapa Nui, to notice more inclusive and felicitous attitudes towards young people - on the streets, as well as within family situations. This is not to generalise, nor to propose sloppy sentimentality – that would trigger major trauma for Australians, at least! - but for us as a gathering to consider how an open and generative organisation such as South Project might take up the opportunity to re-think the role of children. Currently this field is ‘colonised’ by educators, even, to some extent, in the innovative children’s program at Queensland Art Gallery. Potentially, a huge new field of endeavour awaits.

At this stage, I still believe the South Project offers something very special, despite its inevitable and unpredictable flows and flaws. Judging by local attendance at various events, the project is clearly resonating in parts of the local community, not to mention amongst we fortunate visitors from further afield. Unlike biennales or Asia-Pacific Triennials, its strength lies in valuing people and ideas and the convivial and/or confrontational exchange that is thereby generated. By 2008 this model should have provided new and/or extended existing southerly points of contact, which may well be situated and/or centralised in South America, Africa or the Pacific. This will be an appropriate time to disband or at least significantly down scale ‘South Central’. Hopefully, the time leading up to and during the Johannesburg event will see a productive weaning of vigorous, new generation relationships from the parent organisation while maintaining, of course, close familial connections.

A few days ago Pat Hoffie and myself were (as is our wont) discussing matters of ‘world importance’ at length and tending to ignore a number of patient requests by her ten year old daughter, Vasaia, to come and see what she had been doing. Finally, we succumbed and, somewhat patronisingly, followed her to a corner of the hotel garden. Here, we were delighted to see a miniature form of ‘village’, constructed from bits and pieces of foliage, stones  and found objects. She had, Vasaia explained, been quietly creating a ‘new land’ while we were talking. Our children have much to tell us.

October 2006/January 2007

Dr Pamela Zeplin PhD, MA, BA (Hons)

Committed to cross-cultural and collaborative research, Pamela has initiated new programmes in Asia-Pacific and Indigenous art and culture to SASA postgraduates and undergraduates and in 2001 –2002 developed a Student Support & Equity (International) Portfolio. From 1998-2004 she co-convened the successful Public Forums in the Visual Art programs with industry partners, Nexus Multicultural Arts Centre and Helpmann Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts. In 2007, with Olga Sankey, Pamela co- coordinated a major cross-institutional residency by renowned Indonesian artist Heri Dono and curated his exhibition at SASA Gallery, The dream republic. For her research and teaching she was awarded a University of South Australia Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2007, and in 2008 an ALTC (formerly Carrick Institute) Australian Award for University Teaching.