Dialogic painting and mythology: Cross-cultural collaboration amidst COVID restrictions
Abstract
This paper discusses early findings from cross-cultural collaborative research that initially proposed travel to South-East Asia prior to COVID. A discussion that focusses on a specific collaborative encounter within this research between contemporary painters Harrison See and Desmond Mah, resulting in a video titled ‘Intermission’ that captured the creation of a large collaborative painting of the same name. This project was financially supported by a creative grant that contractually bound its recipients to adhere to COVID restrictions. Restrictions that offered creative opportunities for these two artists as they reciprocated each other’s painterly utterances within a dialogic exchange between two divergent cultural positions. This dialogic and collaborative approach to myth-making brought to the surface the misinterpretation, misalignment, and at times, the general untranslatability between their cultural positions. As Mah and See drew on their respective socio-cultural iconographies they applied inks, gesso and soy sauce, reworking their own, and each other’s imagery. A space that facilitated the improvisation of a tension-filled fable of hybrid Australian cultural identities. This non-aligned space invited currents of difference, consensus and an avenue for exchange during the sometimes racially dividing COVID crisis.
RAS ID
36251
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Date of Publication
2020
School
Graduate Research
Copyright
free_to_read
Publisher
The Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools
Comments
See, H. (2020, November). Dialogic painting and mythology: Cross-cultural collaboration amidst COVID restrictions [Paper presentation]. Proceedings of Crisis & Resilience: Art and design looks ahead, Sydney, NSW, Australia. https://acuads.com.au/conference/article/dialogic-painting-and-mythology-cross-cultural-collaboration-amidst-covid-restrictions/