Postgraduate Summer Program: assessment exhibitions

Barnaby Chambers The Writing on the Wall

Many foreigners confronted by Chinese script feel it is an insurmountable barrier. To learn to read and write in Chinese may be an extremely daunting prospect for a westerner, but one which can open the door to an understanding of the culture. Conversely, to turn away from it is to perpetuate the barrier just that little bit more. Chambers’ work is concerned with the notions of cultural barriers, misunderstandings and misinterpretations. He enjoys the difficulties of cross-cultural communication that happen as a regular part of life. This is what he hopes to reflect in his work.






 

Sean Rafferty Home Theatre

Much of Rafferty’s work addresses the relationships surrounding an artwork: the role of the artist in relationship to his artwork, the relationship of the audience to the artwork and their capacity for determining meanings for the work, the relationship of the artwork to its immediate environment, and the relationship of the explanatory or associated texts to the artwork. Prevalent in his recent works has been the establishment of the work’s relationship with itself. His Projection series is a number of small, experimental projects that have as their starting point the flickering light of a television at night, which is interpreted as the presence of an audience, without knowledge of what the audience sees.