Published May 2009
From
Origin, the setting of things, where something is from, where someone might be going or missing or referring to, issues of belonging or rejection are located within an equation of environment. This sense of ‘From’ informs most things art – from thinking all creation is a reaction to the world around us right down to the fact that one’s creations have to exist somewhere even if it is on the wires of the web. It makes for a convenient, if not easy, theme for an art magazine. Good on us.
From antipodean pining for the established centres and working in various art-scenes across the globe, to a sense of location and identification, this issue looks at the use and importance of place in the works of contemporary and emerging artists, curators and institutions and public events. Tightening the reign on this inspection, though, we’re tracing a line around those that try to, in drawing from their surroundings, effect some change on them. We’re turning our eyes to people that are changing both the view and how it’s being viewed.
In my childhood there are trees that from this distance appear as the smoke between buildings, shapes on tops of buildings that look like buses, how they get there blows my mind, facing mirrors in elevators that in their unsnatchable infinity taunt me but probably teach me the world too. We learn the shapes we see, put them into the dictionary of things we’ve seen before, or that through some series of connections can describe and move on. In some ways though it’s the best glance we have – being made to look at how we look, not having the right language all the time, seeing new shadows in the familiar or new things casting old shadows.