As a teenager hitchhiking in the far north of India I was fortunate to witness a ritual in which the local oracle became possessed by a fiery deity, in order that the future of the entire community might be foretold. Like the shamans of many a traditional society numerous contemporary artists consider the process of personal transcendence to be an integral part of their creative practice, functioning like their antecedents to bring new knowledge into the realm of public discourse. In light of the rigours and indeed hazards of such exacting personal processes it is both unsurprising and indeed significant that artists in the era of advanced globalisation are challenged not only by their place incontemporary society but also by the double dilemma posed within the layered conditions of cultural displacement.

Surveying the work of the artists in BORDER-ING: space – time – memory, one is instantly struck by the poignancy of their collected experiences, focusing in particular on their place in the world today. While the practices of these artists are far from homogenous, they are united nonetheless by the uneasy relationship they maintain towards notions of an inclusive societal whole and by their positioning within the shifting landscapes of personal and societal memories. It is for this reason that many of these artists have been inspired by experiences relating to migratory states or to the situations of those who have found themselves displaced from an inclusive social structure.

In the work of Mirjana Vuk-Nikic questions are posed about the treatment of those who seek asylum in a new and safer homeland. Physical barriers, including cyclone fences, appear in works such as Fences 3, 2005, evoking concepts of exclusion and division. The artist however is keen to encourage dialogue across party lines. In Two Fire, 2006, Vuk-Nikic uses intersected photographic images to focus on a confl ict situation involving Aboriginal protestors and government authorities. Through its two-way perspective, the work invites viewers to consider both sides of the argument.

Also interested in the dehumanising spaces of the institution, Zsuzsanna Hase explores the loss of memory and identity associated with dementia and mental illness. Her works, however, carry a broader resonance encompassing the treatment and processing of the vulnerable and the displaced across a range of social structures. In the context of migration the demarcation between the mentally ill and the socially displaced has of late been disturbingly haphazard –the one at times being mistaken for the other as in the recent cases of Australians Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alverez Solon. In other works Hase uses language as an encrypted form. Rendered difficult to decipher and placed in transient locations, it is the viewer who experiences a state of alienation, towards both the spatial and linguistic content.

Equally concerned with igniting the experience of alienation within the viewer, Yolanda Juen uses the written word to convey something of the problems one encounters in a new cultural context. Based on personal experience as a recent immigrant to Australia, Juen deals with the barriers of language and the struggle associated with assimilation into a foreign culture. In works such as Growth III, 2004 words and letters scatter across a jumble of concertinaed pages, while in other works, such as Aketaip, 2004 the apparent formality of the printed word is off set by a seeming lack of meaning.

In contrast Luciana Perin, who has spent the majority of her life in Australia yet maintains strong links to her native home of Italy, focuses on identity using familiar materials and ordinary objects, relocating them in a heightened symbolism that refers to tradition, memory and the personal. Espresso machines, transformed by shroud-like coverings, are placed in sequential rows. In another work large-scale conical filter papers hover in the air. These are nostalgic images suggesting accumulation, extraction and essence. Yet, like all past memories they convey experiences that are fundamentally unattainable. In this they reflect the essential problem of residing between disparate identities.

Through her sculptural installations María Peña focuses on the disorienting states of those who find themselves in the limbo of cultural migration. In her series entitled ‘A Border Dweller’ human figures are reduced to truncated chests and the lower portions of the head. Placed on precarious wooden stilts and decorated with swirling fl oral motifs, the fi gures are simultaneously eviscerated and embellished. Whilst laden with socio-political implications Peña’s work is concerned more directly with the internal experience of those whose individual and cultural certainties have been uprooted. In this the diaphanous gauze protuberance, which arises spirit-like from the crown of the faceless heads, points optimistically to the possibilities of transcendence and change.

Seeking perhaps to overturn the anxieties of cultural dualism, Xiao Yu Bai’s contemplative works are a mixture of traditional Chinese painting, Daoist theory and western realism involving perception, time and memory. As a source of spiritual transcendence Daoism promises a state that for many a practitioner diminishes the vicissitudes of worldly existence. This implicit challenge to the material underpinnings of cultural identifi cation (framed as yet another manifestation of samsaric existence) is addressed in Bai’s ethereal canvases through the recurrent image of the humble ceramic bowl. While the symbolic and philosophical implications of this imagery would require much greater room than is available in this essay, suffice it to say Bai’s work is a clear example of the sustaining power of spiritual practice and the transcendent potential of art making.

In common with Xiao Yu Bai’s, Jakov Zaper questions diff erent realities by opening up spatial possibilities that enable one to experience expanded time and memories. Light and space become the tools of communication; mood and ambience off ering a space for contemplation. Signifi cantly there is little in Zaper’s work that anchors it to a precise cultural context – its language arising from the reductive elements of contemporary installation. Yet like all of the artists in this show Zaper’s work invites one to look beyond the immediate problems of social and material existence.

Damian Smith 2006