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Artmaking practice and the cultural frame

Interview with the artist/curator: Vivienne Dadour

Focus question

Summarise what you understand about Vivienne Dadour’s practice in this article by listing points under the following headings:

  • Cultural and historical influences
  • Motivational influences
  • Choices
  • Intentions
  • Procedure and actions
  • Self-evaluation

How is the cultural frame evident in the artwork of Vivienne Dadour? Give examples to support your answer.

List of images

Interview questions:

  1. You have mentioned when describing your work that you deal with the "cultural and psychological fragmentation of self". Does this allude to a highly personal and subjective theme that runs through all your art works?

  2. Your cultural heritage plays an important role in your art making would you like to discuss this? "Cultural diasporas" are contingent and contextual mechanisms within your art making. Ethnicity and social attitudes appear to be thematic catalysts in your art making. Would you agree? Why?

  3. Are there particular ways in which you undertake to produce an artwork? Could you briefly explain the process you go through when producing an artwork?

  4. What theoretical framework, if any, underpins your art making?

  5. What artists have served as an inspiration in the production of your artwork?

  6. The exhibition you organised, curated and co-exhibited, titled 'Sarajevo' in 1997, dealt with war, victimisation and innocent people. Could you discuss the aims of the exhibition and the work you entered titled 'Fractured selves'?

  7. Can art be political? How? Do you think contemporary artists are coming to terms with political issues?

  1. You have mentioned when describing your work that you deal with the “cultural and psychological fragmentation of self”. Does this allude to a highly personal and subjective theme that runs through all your art works?

    “My art confronts one of the important issues of our times and emerges from the dynamics of challenged identities, allegiances and interrelations. This work reflects one of the defining characteristics of my practice – a commitment to integrating art and life, for when art speaks about issues and makes connections between art and society it most fulfils a role that helps unite us, whatever our origins or homeland.

    Since 1992 my visual work and research has been concerned with issues of nation and nationality, ethnic essentialism, cultural diversity, dissolution and the politics of identity. Specifically, my work has been based on my awareness of the cultural and psychological fragmentation around us. While I am positive about the human spirit to survive, I feel concern about how we are to live in a dislocated society.

    During the years 1992-1997, I created two series of works that were directly influenced by experiences I had as a result of two extended stays in Paris in 1992 and 1996. From these experiences I developed works which were a series of paintings and drawings about the war in the Balkan’s.

    War Drawing 1

    War Drawing 2

    In 1992 I met with Swiss/German artist Miriam Cahn in her studio in Basel at the beginning of the first winter during the siege of Sarajevo. Miriam Cahn was making art that responded to the horror of this conflict, and this started me thinking about the role art has to play in meeting the human and political needs of communication and recognition. In 1996 I had the opportunity to return to Paris for three months to continue my research through the Art Gallery NSW at the Cite International des Art.

    I collected newspaper and magazine articles that related to war and slowly began to see how these images and documentary material could be absorbed into my working processes. These processes became a metaphor for fragmentation and disintegration and a commentary on the lives of ordinary people.

    My visual work during this period, in the form of paintings and drawings, were exhibited in a solo exhibition at the Chapman Gallery, Canberra, that featured my war drawings, a solo exhibition called “Fractured Selves” shown at King Street Gallery on Burton, Sydney, that featured mixed media works, and an exhibition called “Sarajevo”, that I curated and was a participating artist.

    Presence 1995

    Face

    This exhibition was shown at the Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney, and later toured to the Long Gallery, Wollongong University and Bathurst Regional Gallery. The works represented in these exhibitions focused on my most immediate and enduring thoughts and feelings about war which are mortality, vulnerability and victimisation.

    The reactions I experienced to the universal and eternal subjects of war, racial conflict and suffering as seen in Sarajevo, have more recently moved into a personal investigation of my family’s cultural identity as it was shaped by disruption in a very profound manner.”

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  2. Your cultural heritage plays an important role in your art making would you like to discuss this? “Cultural diasporas” are contingent and contextual mechanisms within your art making. Ethnicity and social attitudes appear to be thematic catalysts in your art making. Would you agree? Why?

    “This century has been marked by massive movements of people around the globe: people who have been exiled, people who have been forced out of their homelands, and people who, for a multitude of different reasons, have made their homes elsewhere. A home left behind is never completely forgotten or abandoned, as elements of the past continue to be remembered and experienced in new lands, in times and places far away. I am interested in those links with the past and in how displacement affects people’s notions of home. My artworks explore complex issues about my culture and community, the recovery of history and culture marginalised by the dominant ideological constructs of identity.

    Since 1997 my work has developed into an autobiographical account of my pioneer Syrian-Lebanese migrant ancestors, whose experience of displacement and survival in Redfern, Sydney from 1895-1995 informs this work. From the 1880s a combination of harsh economic, social and religious conditions in Lebanon provided the impetus for emigration. In this period Australia was constructed as a homogeneous culture, one that was emphatically Anglo-Celtic. I am familiar with issues that relate to their attempts to redefine their identity as they faced disruption on entering a new land, the problems associated with sudden demands to “assimilate” and persecution on religious, racial, tribal, national, or political grounds.

    Physical and cultural dislocation characterised much of their lives as they lived with underlying contradictory forces: on the one hand, economic internationalisation and the formation of "global culture" and, on the other, political fragmentation based on regionalism, ethnic separation and extreme economic polarisation. During this period Australia was marked by a sense of exclusive nationalism expressed in the white Australia Policy. With the onset of World War 1 my family members were classified as enemy aliens and had to endure restricted lives. Even so, they were pressured to "assimilate". These early pioneers did not abandon their roots, but infused their cultural heritage (different traditions, values and experiences) into their Australian lives.”

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  3. Are there particular ways in which you undertake to produce an artwork? Could you briefly explain the process you go through when producing an artwork?

    “My artwork juxtaposes two elements: the brutality of racist agendas and the identities of migrant people. Word and image work in opposition to law and public life and the intimate “visual” realm of experience and memory.

    I am exploring the making of mixed media: two-dimensional and installation type works that employ photographic and computer technology, text, drawn and painted images to construct an interplay between reproduced and imagined images. This creates a dialogue between the images by reportioning through juxtaposition, contrast and depiction. I use images and information in the form of copies of my ancestors’ original letters and documents, photographs, icons and objects from their everyday lives circa 1896- 1945.

    Collage of photos and other documents

    The images are constructed to stress the process of displacement and the migrant act of survival to explore the way that the crisscrossing metaphors of fragmentation, displacement and overlaying, underlie bicultural migrant landscapes.

    Mixed media image

    The words highlight the subject matter and add political and social dimensions. Text is extracted from the White Australia Policy, NSW Parliamentary Debates on Coloured Races Restriction and Regulation Bill 1896, NSW Parliamentary Debates on Immigration of Inferior Races 1896, political speeches by Hanson and Howard and personal archives.

    For example: The following text is from a NSW Parliamentary Debate on Coloured Races Restriction and Regulation Bill 1896 and is a speech by Mr McGowen the Member for Redfern. This text is part of my artwork “INFERIOR RACES” Series 2000.

    Mixed media

    “We see all around us an insidious invasion of people that are gradually creeping on us, and sapping away the character of the British race from which we are descended... It does not matter whether it was the 600 (Chinese) men who attempted to land in 1888, or the 70 Syrians who landed only a few months ago in my electorate... Now, in the Redfern electorate we have a Syrian town where not only Syrian but also Hindus are gradually forcing the white population out... In my district it is practically impossible for the white people to live anywhere near the people to whom I refer... white people do not care to reside anywhere close to them. Some couple of hundred of them are now settled in my electorate, and they are forcing away from two streets all the white population who reside there.”

    The images and text together stress the process of displacement and the migrant act of survival. I explore the way that the crisscrossing metaphors of fragmentation and overlaying, underlie bi-cultural migrant landscapes. I want to confront the audience with the different public and private realities that people live through.”

    Collage

    Person in blues

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  4. What theoretical framework, if any, underpins your art making?

    “My work is informed by current discussions on the definitions of cultural difference, ethnicity and the ongoing hybrid narratives of the cultural diaspora. The dominance of western colonialism has been opposed by theorists such as Edward Said and Homi Bhahba. Homi Bhahba asserts that liberal democracy and Marxist historicism cannot cope with the diversity of cultures and that different cultures are “incommensurables” and cannot be categorised into universalist frameworks.

    The writings of selected writers, art critics and art historians have been researched over the last two years. They are Lucy Lippard, Salman Rushdie, Edward Said, Elizabeth Gertsakis, Deborah Hart, David Malouf, Jeanette Winterson, Iain chambers, Nikos Papastergiadis and Stuart Hall.”

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  5. What artists have served as an inspiration in the production of your artwork?

    “For insight to specific associations and meanings of forms and motifs that appear in my work I have investigated historical traditions and current practices of artists whose work incorporates cultural and social concerns. These are: Nancy Spero, Christian Boltanski, Joseth Kosouth, Katherina Sieverding, Mona Hartoum and Anselm Kieffer.”

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  6. The exhibition you organised, curated and co-exhibited, titled ‘Sarajevo’ in 1997, dealt with war, victimisation and innocent people. Could you discuss the aims of the exhibition and the work you entered titled ‘Fractured selves’?

    FIRST STRIKE FOR PEACE

    “It has been suggested that survival is the only modern topic, and artists seeking immortality in the nuclear age must confront the notion that there may be no prosperity. In this context, art can be seen either as an escape or as a strike for peace. It is the artist’s job to conceive the inconceivable, and to move us, to move us closer to realisation, to empower us to imaging, even to imagine the most dreadful things. But artists are as scared as everybody else to get too close to the fires of extinction.”

    “First Strike for Peace” was the title of an article by Lucy Lippard published in Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics, 1985. Part of this article is quoted above. Ten years later it provided me with a framework for my ideas about the intersections between art and life which in turn gave me the confidence to curate Sarajevo.

    Sarajevo had its origins from a meeting between myself and Swiss/German artist Miriam Cahn in her studio in Basel, September 1992 – the beginning of the first winter during the siege of Sarajevo. For the first time in my life I was in very close proximity to death and destruction and was struck by the significance of this war for all of us. Miriam Cahn was making art that responded to the horror of this conflict, which started me thinking about the role art has to play in meeting the human and political needs of communication and recognition.

    Sarajevo has grown out of my response to this experience. In 1995 I decided to bring together artists, writers, historians, educators and curators in Australia to share ideas about the devastating effects of war and the role that art can play in demonstrating the horrors of war. I do not intend simply to condemn, condone, or justify any of the many players in this particular tragedy. This exhibition tries to expose visually what happened or can happen when people fail to prevent or to end war. Future generations will see the wars of this century through artists’ eyes as well as that of the media. There will always be a space for imaginative visions unrestrained by urgent news deadlines.

    “In August 1939 Sir Kenneth Clark, then Director of the National Gallery in London, approached the Ministry of Information with the suggestion that it form a committee to advise on the employment of artists to record the war... simply to keep artists at work on any pretext, and, as far as possible, to prevent them from being killed.”

    World War Two, 1989, Tate Gallery, Liverpool, P.1

    When I approached artists to make art about war I hoped to show the world what war does and, as far as possible, to prevent us all from being killed.

    Artists were invited to contribute to Sarajevo if their previous work and or their current work addressed issues of identity, humanity or militarism, and offered diverse insights into key social issues arising from the war in Bosnia. Two of these artists, Peter Pinson and George Gittoes, have held positions as official military artists with the Australian Defence Forces; six artists, Elizabeth Ashburn, Elwyn Lynn, Ian Howard, Enid Ratnam-Keese, Denis del Favero and Dianna Wood Conroy have dealt with the theme of particular wars including the Long March, the Vietnam War, the Kurdish conflicts and the African Civil Wars; finally, I have addressed the general theme of the plight of humanity in the face of horrific conflict. The nine artists work in a variety of media and have differing political and poetic intentions. They are among the relatively few contemporary Australian artists who are willing to demonstrate a deep concern for the effects of current warfare in their work. As a totality, their work reflects the many-sided natures of the tragedy of war. Their diverse visions complement and enhance each other, giving a profound and disturbing understanding of war.

    Prisoners 1995

    Sarajevo’s and Bosnia’s struggle is our struggle. It is the struggle of the world for peace, democracy, cultural diversity and tolerance, particularly against fascism. I do not believe that art has the power to change the course of history, or even to stop the recurrence of the atrocities that have gone on in the former Yugoslavia. But art can cast light on this subject by moving the viewer emotionally, spiritually and intellectually and by prompting discussion and debate.”

    Vivienne Dadour,
    Exhibition Curator

    Fractured selves: a brief description

    “The images of broken, lost people from former Yugoslavia like those photographed by Charley G. Cupic represent for me the violence and suffering inflicted on the individual by politics, by history and by society. I have created images which reflect my feelings on these issues and for the most part are denunciatory rather than affirmative. When I react to the subject of war my most immediate and enduring thoughts and feelings are of mortality, vulnerability and victimisation. For me the victims are the essence of war. Fractured Selves is about these victims.

Fractured Selves 1997

  1. Dealing with the subject of Sarajevo I have had to contend with the morality of using the suffering of others to make art as well as the relevance of making paintings in relation to existing photographs. During the past two years I collected newspaper and magazine articles and slowly began to see these images as documentary material which could be absorbed into my working processes. The sense of actually witnessing an event in the media photographs is re-imaged in my paintings and this transformation opens up an emotional and intellectual relationship to the war that photographic documentation does not allow. These processes became a metaphor for fragmentation and disintegration and a commentary on the lives of ordinary people.

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  1. Can art be political? How? Do you think contemporary artists are coming to terms with political issues?

    I believe that when art speaks about issues  it can  make an intervention between art and society. The power of art to visualise cross-cultural connections and artists’ refusal  to remain silent when tolerance of religious and racial diversity is threatened is important.

    The following extracts are from two writers who are very influential to my working processes.

One’s own lived experience, respectfully related to that of others, remains for me the best foundation for social vision, of which art is a significant part. Personal associations, education, political and environmental contexts, class and ethnic backgrounds, value systems and market values, all exert their pressures on the interaction between eye, mind and image.

At the vortex of the political and the spiritual lies a renewed sense of function, even a mission, for art. The new fuels the avant-garde, where “risk” has been a byword. But new need not mean unfamiliar, or another twist of the picture plane. It can mean a fresh way of looking at shared experience. The real risk is to venture outside of the imposed art contexts, both as a viewer and as an artist, to live the connections with people like and unlike oneself. When culture is perceived as the entire fabric of life – including the arts with dress, speech, social customs, decoration, food – one begins to see art itself differently.

Lucy Lippard Mixed Blessings Pantheon, New York, 1990

 

Art certainly seems irrelevant when there is not enough food, warmth or water for survival, when people are living in overcrowded basements of ruined buildings with death from snipers, cold or malnutrition ever-present. Nevertheless, even under the bleakest conditions, some sufferers remained convinced that the arts – those core activities which distinguish humanity from beasts – could not be abandoned. To have allowed the culture that defined them to disappear would have meant that the enemy had won, regardless of the outcome of any battle. Di Giovanni writes of the woman editor who kept the daily newspaper going throughout the war despite the lack of every facility, and of Boyan and Dada Hadzihalilovic, designers of the posters “that were to become the symbols of the war”:

“At the beginning, we were shocked and scared,” (Boyan) says. “But ten days after the war started, we began to make the posters in impossible conditions. We had to, you know, to do something for the town.”

Visual propaganda produced “under siege” has immediate value and effect, yet images made retrospectively as “symbols of the war” can be even more powerful reminders of the “inconceivable” for distant viewers emotionally inoculated against reality by a daily dose of TV. Moreover, art alone can capture a specific war-torn moment or place for all time, as Picasso’s Guernica, that icon of the Spanish Civil War, so famously demonstrates.

These artists believe that art can make a difference, that its power to visualise cross-cultural connections without taking sides or attempting to provide easy solutions is a strength that helps unite us, whatever our origins or homeland. It also points a moral for this specific audience and this place, for our need as artists or art historians to speak out when our appreciation and tolerance of religious and racial diversity is threatened by noisy ideologues. As the historian Glenda Sluga from “the smaller, quieter Australian Slovene community (to which I do – and do not – belong)” commented in 1994:

“London, Melbourne, Sydney have nothing, and everything, to do with Yugoslavia. The war is undermining the language of pluralism and multiculturalism at the same time as it is reminding us of the worlds we might lose or have already lost.”

Joan Kerr Catalogue essay for exhibition Sarajevo, Sydney 1997

Centre for Cross-Cultural Research, Australian National University

List of images

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