Courting Blakness : Recalibrating Knowledge in the Sandstone University

(Status : Public)
Coordinated by AustLit Flinders Team
  • Overview

    What is the role of art in the life of the university at a moment when online spaces of learning and research are transforming the meaning and experience of campus life?

    Courting Blakness (5-28 September, 2014) tackled this question through a unique public installation of contemporary art in the symbolic and material heart of The University of Queensland – the Great Court. As a public cultural space, the Great Court reflects the University’s heritage, traditions and prestige as well as providing an important gathering place and thoroughfare. Yet the Great Court also stands on Aboriginal land and depicts Aboriginal heritage. As such it provides a crucial staging platform for discussions about the relationship between Indigenous people and the University as a global knowledge institution. The Great Court’s architectural embodiment of the meeting of academic disciplines and the arts includes numerous representations of Aboriginal people prior to, during and after the colonization of Australia carved in sculptural reliefs on its sandstone enclosure.

    Curator and UQ Adjunct Professor, Fiona Foley, brought works by Ryan Presley, Archie Moore, Rea, Natalie Harkin, Karla Dickens, Christian Thompson, Megan Cope and Michael Cook into a creative visual dialogue with these representations.

    On September 5 & 6, 2014, a national public symposium was held with Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics, artists and industry professionals to discuss the questions posed by the artworks on site. Research publications sparked by these conversations followed in 2015-16.

    Around 25,000 people including UQ staff, students and Alumni were exposed to contemporary Aboriginal art works while they were on site during two of the busiest weeks of semester 2, 2014. Members of Indigenous communities of Brisbane and South East Queensland, upper level primary and secondary school students, national and international tourists, visitors from other Brisbane universities, members of the art world and interested members of the general public were invited to experience this innovative project and to interact with it.

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      Archie Moore

      An Essay by David Bergener
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      Christian Thompson

      An Essay by Alice-Anne Psaltis
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      Fiona Foley

      An Essay by Natasha Norford
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      Karla Dickens

      An Essay by Jessica Brodie
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      Megan cope

      An Essay by Catherine Lawrence
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      Michael Cook

      An Essay by Katherine Halliday
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      r e a and Natalie Harkin

      An Essay by Carol Masel
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      Rhyl Hinwood: Great Court Artist

      An Essay by Ashley Kerrison
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      Ryan Presley

      An Essay by Jacob Warren

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