There are two I's in 'in the making'

After the past three months of critical introspection into my multi-dimensional artistic practice and reflexive self-analysis, the time has come to delve back into the “real world” and find myself making something again.  I’ve begun a new project after a brief hiatus from the more practical pursuits of being an artist. No better place to begin then in the third space! For sure.

The “Third Space” is an international collaborative art exchange developed through a unique creative partnership between the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (China) and Edith Cowan University (Australia).  The impetus for this project, according to Professor Clive Barstow (ECU), the chief coordinator, “[…] is based on what Homi Bhabha refers to as ‘the third space’ a notional space between cultures, and in our case a space in which we will engage through creative collaboration.

Bhabha describes this space as ‘incommensurable’, a space that creates tensions and incompatibility within cultural groups forced together through global migration:

” The non-synchronous temporality of global and national cultures opens up a cultural space — a third space—where the negotiation of incommensurable differences creates a tension peculiar to borderline existences… Hybrid hyphenisations emphasize the incommensurable elements as the basis of cultural identities” 1 (Barstow, 2009).

Here, in the ‘third space’ there are some central themes that emerge ripe for artistic exploration.  Broadly, these include personal and cultural identity, communication, globalisation, and hybridisation.  Personally, I’m attracted to the concept of identity hybridity and how identities might develop collaboratively and communicatively within a ‘third space’.

Considering one’s identity outside of cultural boundaries, the ‘Third Space’ project focuses a concept asserted by Nikos Papastergiadis; “that what we are is where we are now, rather than where we were from” 2 suggesting that our cultural histories have little bearing on our current identity within a modern hybrid society.” (cited by Barstow, 2009).

This notion is of course contextual, in that our present context, being a matrix of our own trajectories (and histories), culminates in what we perceive as our current situation through which we create identification of self and other within various relational contexts, i.e. ontological, phenomenological, etc. In other words, our present context carries more weight in our understanding of who or what we are in comparison to the limiting perspective offered through the lens of all other past contexts. This train of thought seems to lead towards that old “the end of history” line. Are we continuously forgetting our past in exchange for a fresh mind for an open future, free from the restraints of historical ideology?

Before I forget what I was talking about…coming back to the project, the group consists of 16 artists, (eight Chinese artists and eight Australian artists). We are paired with a counterpart and given four months to collaborate on a work of art, exchanging the work either via snail mail or digitally via FTP. The work can be in any medium we choose to incorporate.

“This shared form of collaboration places certain demands on the artists, such as surrendering the individual right of ownership of the work along with many established methodologies of art production that are common to both western and Chinese cultures. A collaborative approach will promote the need for individuals to communicate across languages, and/or let the work communicate to prompt the partners response. Works should be exchanged a number of times to develop the notion of hybridity.” (Barstow, 2009).

Another interesting facet of the project is the final exhibition, which will be shown in Perth and Shanghai.  The exhibition will be visually communicated in its entirety. Designers from the School of Communications and Arts are given the task of designing the media for the exhibition and  “asked to explore non-textual and cross-cultural means of expressing time, place and direction.”

In the near future, we Australian artists will be off to Shanghai to kick off the project, beginning with a brief residency at USST where we will meet our partners and get a taste of Chinese contemporary art culture. This almost feels like cheating…..

Some pressing questions that I hope to work through:

Is there really a third space? Or, do we each develop our own third spaces?  If the third space is between culture, a space that has no common means of identification, and is incommesurable (having no common standard of comparability), is it possible to bridge this space? And if so what type of bridge can do it?

More to come… from a third space.

1 Bhabha, Homi. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.

2 Papastergiadis Nikos. 2003. Complex Entanglements Art, Globalisation and Cultural Difference: Rivers Oram London. Reviewed by Ian Maclean at http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-April-2004/maclean.html