News
Jo Higgins
Published outcomes - National Gallery of ...
Published outcomes - National Gallery of Australia: Digital Young Writers Mentorship
Writings
Jo Higgins
ABC Arts: 'Air' at QAGOMA
ABC Arts: 'Air' at QAGOMA
Writings
Jo Higgins
ABC Arts: Megan Cope is building a living, ...
ABC Arts: Megan Cope is building a living, breathing artwork on Minjerribah
Writings, Events
Jo Higgins
Exhibition essay: Topographies of painting - ...
Exhibition essay: Topographies of painting - Gregory Hodge, Sullivan + Strumpf
Writings
Jo Higgins
ABC Arts: Richard Bell at documenta fifteen
ABC Arts: Richard Bell at documenta fifteen

National Gallery Australia

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Artlink magazine's 'Hyphen' issue published

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Of the many genuinely special outcomes to emerge from the National Young Writers Program that I’ve been leading at the National Gallery of Australia for the last couple of years, this latest issue of Artlink magazine has to be one of the proudest.

Artlink has been publishing thematic issues dedicating to contemporary art practice across Australia and the Asia-Pacific for over four decades. It’s a rigorous, provocative, thoughtful publication that has long championed emerging and early career writers. I should know. My first by-line was a review for Artlink over 20 years ago (a Very Cringe Read all these years later, but still.)

Having Artlink Editor Una Rey and Assistant Editor Belinda Howden join the National Young Writers Program this year - with Artlink as official Publishing Partner - has brought another level of rigour, context, professionalism and care to the program. Their faith (in me, the program, the participants) to offer up their Summer issue to three program alumni to guest-edit as part of a paid professional development mentorship has been such a huge undertaking.

Back in July, Claire Osborn-Li, Ava Lacoon and Hen Vaughan were selected as guest editors and they’ve been working with Una and Belinda over the last five months to conceive, commission, edit and deliver their issue, Hyphen. It is now officially out in the world…

I feel very proud of them and very proud to have contributed an essay to this issue. “The Museum As A Cowboy Place” is my rethinking of the critical role of youth programs and young people to museums in the wake of MCA Australia quietly shuttering their Young Creatives programs earlier this year, including GENEXT, the Youth Committee and Young Guides.

The museums might be struggling (and/or getting it wrong) but if Hyphen and its guest editors and other young writers are any measure of things to come, the future feels salvage-able/possible/bright?….

You can order a hardcopy and/or buy a digital version of Hyphen via the Artlink website here. Please support the magazine and these writers. And if you want a taste - Claire, Ava and Hen’s editorial is available to read free here.

OTHER POSTS

Panel talk: Australian Museums & Galleries Association National Conference

On Tuesday I chaired a panel talk at the annual Australian Museums and Galleries Association national conference, which is being held in Newcastle, on Worimi Country, this year.

The panel talk was a reflection on last year’s pilot Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program, which I developed and ran for the National Gallery of Australia.

I was so grateful to be joined by curator and academic Nur Shkembi, one of the mentors on the program, mentee and emerging curator and arts writer Jade Irvine and the Gallery’s Tim Fairfax Digital Learning Manager, Julia Mendel.

Over the course of an hour we talked about what the project entailed – the inherent risks and rewards in piloting a program designed to support and elevate critical young voices, what it set out to achieve, the challenges, and what participating in it has left us all reflecting on.

You can watch the panel talk here.

OTHER POSTS

Published outcomes - National Gallery of Australia: Digital Young Writers Mentorship

I’m looking forward to sharing some reflections and learnings from this project in the coming months. But in the meantime - some publication highlights from the program’s mentees:

ASSEMBLY: An annotation

Hen Vaughan responds to the themes of translation and collectivity in Angelica Mesiti’s three-channel video installation, ASSEMBLY.

Is social media affecting how we engage with art?

Aisyah Aaqil Sumito interviews artist Dan Bourke about the impact of Web 2.0 on our cognitive reading of art, pointing to children learning in a new exhibition.

This interview was published by ArtsHub, the publishing partner of the Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program.

Contemporary Resonances of Art in the Age of AIDS

Aisyah Aaqil Sumito reflects on the contemporary resonances of the trailblazing 1994 exhibition, ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way: Art in the Age of AIDS.’

A Modern Approach to Exhibiting Costume

Michelle Guo explores the challenges that curators encounter when exhibiting costume, and the unique way that they have gone about acquiring Justene Williams’ costumes for ‘Victory Over the Sun’.

Kara Walker’s Monument

Jade Irvine reflects on African American artist Kara Walker’s use of scale - from intimate to monumental - and her consideration of the histories that are memorialised and those that remain obscured.

REVIEW: Deborah Prior - On The Third Day

Hen Vaughan review's Deborah Prior’s powerful new textile exhibition at JamFactory Seppeltsfield, On The Third Day, for the Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program’s publishing partner, ArtsHub.

REVIEW: HOME | LAND

Jade Irvine reviews the group exhibition, HOME | LAND, at Hobart’s Contemporary Art Tasmania for ArtsHub, the publishing partner of the Digital Young Writers Mentorship Program.

OTHER POSTS

I acknowledge the Gadigal and Bidjigal peoples of the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the unceded land on which I live and work and I pay my respects to their Elders, past and present.