Full Description
This boundary-breaking volume examines an array of objects that, in various ways, complicate narrow definitions of art and Australian identity. It shows how each object has informed and enriched contemporary Australian personal and political life in complex, often overlooked ways.
Featuring essays and object case studies by leading and emerging art historians, artists, curators, historians and anthropologists, The Australian Object offers a material intervention into Australian art and cultural histories by highlighting objects that expand definitions of art, nationhood and identity. It employs an object-led approach that combines art history's attentiveness to form and meaning with material culture's concern for use, materials and patterns of movement, incorporating methodologies from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledge systems, art-making, museology, post- and de-colonialism, ecology, design and theology. Focusing on the useful, mobile and multi-sensory aspects of objects, contributors follow their trajectories across cultures, times and places, and through international networks of trade and migration, connecting Australia with China, Vietnam, Iran, England, France and the USA.
The book is divided into five thematic sections: Living Objects, Collecting Objects, Migrating Objects, Monumental Objects and Immaterial Objects. Rather than chronological or geographical groupings, these sections articulate the shared material qualities of objects and their place in a network of makers and users. Furniture, ceramics, photo-montage, signage and boardgames are newly examined as material agents shaping social, cultural, political and religious life in Australia and beyond. Accordingly, the very term 'Australian object' is called into question as writers propose divergent frameworks that emphasise connection and interchange, bringing to light the material culture that Australia has shaped, denied and inspired.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction, Molly Duggins (National Art School, Sydney, Australia), Mark De Vitis (The University of Sydney, Australia), Georgina Cole (National Art School, Sydney, Australia)
Part One: Living Objects
1. Ngubadi Warura: Stringing it All Together, Shannon Foster (D'harawal Saltwater Knowledge Keeper, the University of Technology Sydney, Australia)
2. Sylvan Eyelash of Australian Waters: Guman/Casuarina glauca in Wuganmagulya/Farm Cove, Michael Hill (National Art School, Sydney, Australia)
Part Two: Collecting Objects
3. Country and Colony in the Macquarie Collector's Chest, Shane Frost (Awabakal Elder and Indigenous historian) and Molly Duggins (National Art School, Sydney, Australia)
4. Royal Booties: Aboriginal Shell-Slippers at Buckingham Palace, Maria Nugent (the Australian National University)
Part Three: Migrating Objects
5. Who's Been Sleeping in my Bed? Californian-made Furniture in Australia from the 1880s to 2020s, Mark De Vitis (The University of Sydney, Australia)
6. 'With Compliments of Mr & Mrs Quong Tart': Chinese-Australian Identity in the Gallop House Photomontage Print, Shuxia Chen (University of NSW, Australia)
7. Diasporic Objects: Resounding the Past, James Nguyen and Victoria Pham (Independent Scholars and Artists)
Part Four: Monumental Objects
8. Casting Shadows: Speculative Impressions of a Captain Cook Monument, Julia Lum (Scripps College, Claremont, USA)
9. Appropriation, Pluralism and Interconnection in the 'Australia' Signs for Expo '88, Priya Vaughan and Mark De Vitis (The University of Sydney, Australia)
Part Five: Immaterial Objects
10. Spinning a Golden Boomerang out of Thin Air, Anita Callaway (The University of Sydney, Australia)
11. Chosen Vessels: Clay and Spirit in the Ceramics of Anne Dangar, Georgina Cole and Shane Haseman (National Art School, Australia)
12. The Sky Is the Same: (Dis)orientation and (Be)longing, Ali Tahayori, Independent Scholar and Artist
Epilogue, David Hansen
Index
