Artlink Magazine Diaspora Back Issue

Guest editor Lisa Havilah
The movement of individuals and cultures across nations is increasingly complex and constantly changing. What impact do the shifting cultures of Australia have on contemporary visual arts practice? A number of exhibitions have highlighted the importance of artistic production by diasporic artists to the evolving geography of global contemporary art, and have shown how the experience is differently processed. Artists from Africa, Asia and the Middle East bring with them attachments to home as they move elsewhere for political, social or economic reasons and this process becomes central to their creative practice. What are the uses and misuses of the concept of diaspora in Australia? How does that relate to that particularly Australian term - multiculturalism? Do we over-determine the cultural identities of artists?